Credit: Tung Manh Phan, Breaking Media

Cameron Smith

Tue 19 May 2026 18:00, UK

Aston Villa are looking to end their 30-year trophy drought on Wednesday as they take on Freiburg in the Europa League final.

The Villans secured their place in the final in convincing fashion at the start of the month, with a 4-0 win over Nottingham Forest in the second leg of their semi-final.

After a run of three Premier League matches without a win, Unai Emery’s side sealed their return to the Champions League on Friday by beating Liverpool 4-2 at Villa Park.

Back in form, they now face a Freiburg side fresh from a 4-1 triumph over RB Leipzig, a result that guaranteed a European place on the final day.

Having already looked at what to watch out for in Istanbul, Villa News now takes a look at everything fans need to know about Freiburg away from it.

Freiburg are Germany’s ultimate overachievers

As a small club on the outskirts of the Black Forest, Freiburg are a club carrying relatively low expectations.

100 per cent owned by the supporters, the Breisgauers are among a handful of ‘eingetragener Verein’ remaining in Germany, meaning that the full control of the club remains with its 35,000+ members.

Even with this in mind, they have remained remarkably consistent this decade, with their seventh-place finish this season earning them a fourth European campaign in five years.

‘Kontinuität’ [continuity] is a word regularly heard around the club, with only eight managers having held the post over the last 50 years.

That was particularly true under previous boss Christian Streich, who left the club in 2024 after 13 years in charge and 29 years in a variety of roles.

Freiburg were relegated under Streich in 2015, but in typical fashion, they stuck by the now 60-year-old, allowing him to lay the foundations for the club’s current success.

At Freiburg, success does not necessarily mean what happens on the pitch either, with the idea of continuity once again coming to the fore.

Freiburg supporters take pride in watching a team each week filled with players who have either come through the club’s academy or arrived from the wider Baden-Württemberg region, including local hero Vincenzo Grifo, alongside Freiburg natives Noah Atubolu, Matthias Ginter and the highly rated young defender Max Rosenfelder.

Julian Schuster has carried the momentum forward from Christian Streich

Departing in 2024, Streich left behind a group more than capable of improving on the 10th-place finish recorded in his final year.

Taking over was former captain and midfielder Julian Schuster, stepping into his first role as a head coach.

Born not too far away in Bietigheim-Bissingen, the 41-year-old is another figure with strong ties to the club, and he has been afforded time and patience as he settles into the role.

After narrowly missing out on Champions League football last year, he has guided the Black Forest club to seventh this term, while also leading them to the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal and now the final of the Europa League.

Alongside the experienced core of Grifo, Ginter, Philipp Lienhart and others, he has also unearthed the mercurial talent of Johan Manzambi, who is attracting attention from across the continent.

With a fantastic blend of youthful exuberance and vital experience, Germany’s underdogs, or ‘Aussenseiter’ [meaning ‘outsider’], have reached the Europa League final and are now one of those sides almost expected to be in and around the top end of the standings each year.

Freiburg have always been unique in the way they do things.

Operating on a shoestring budget compared with Wednesday’s Premier League opposition, and with a core of locals throughout the club, they continue to overachieve.

Yet at the same time, it is beginning to feel less surprising, and that is a complete testament to the work being done in Breisgau.