Steffen Freund (born 19 January 1970) is a German former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

defensive midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

in both the German and English top flights. He was capped 21 times for his country and played a significant part in Germany's

UEFA Euro 1996 The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in ...

winning campaign. He is currently working for

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The team has playe ...

Club career

Freund started his career at Stahl Brandenburg, coming through their

youth system In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if ...

. He has said that the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state author ...

made an unsuccessful attempt to recruit him as an informer during his time at the club. In 1991, he was transferred to

FC Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhi ...

and he established himself as an important midfield player. Schalke were forced to sell Freund due to financial reasons in 1993 to

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional foot ...

where he stayed until 1998. During his time at Dortmund, he won the league twice in 1995 and 1996 and gained a Champions League medal in 1997, but was left out of the squad for the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

altogether. In December 1998, Freund transferred to English Premiership club

. During his time with the London club, he won the League Cup in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

, starting in the center of midfield in Spurs's 1–0 win over

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the Nation ...

. He stayed at the club until 2003, and despite never scoring a goal in 131 appearances across all competitions, he became a firm fans favourite at the club for his heart, work ethic and commitment. On 4 December 2009, Freund was inducted into the Tottenham Hotspur hall of fame alongside Darren Anderton. At the tail end of his career he went on to have short spells at

1. FC Kaiserslautern 1. Fußball-Club Kaiserslautern e. V., also known as 1. FCK, FCK (), FC Kaiserslautern () or colloquially Lautern (), is a German sports club based in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to football, the club also operates in severa ...

and Leicester City.

International career

Between 1995 and 1998, he won 21 caps for the Germany national team. He won

with Germany, where he missed out on a place in the final because of an injury in their semi-final win over

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. He also appeared at the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for th ...

, where Germany fell at the quarter-final stage to

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

; Freund was an unused substitute in the match.

Coaching career

On 1 September 2007, Freund was appointed assistant head-coach of the German U-20 team. On 5 December 2007, he was named as a new assistant to

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...

coach

Berti Vogts Hans-Hubert "Berti" Vogts (; born 30 December 1946) is a German former professional footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association ...

for the time of the African Nations Cup. He then resumed his work as assistant to German U20-manager Frank Engel. In May 2009 he finished his coaching badges and on 17 July 2009 he was appointed manager of the German U-16 team signing a two-year contract. A year later he began managing the German U-17 team leading them to a runners up medal at the

2011 UEFA European U-17 Football Championship The 2011 UEFA European Under-17 Championship was the tenth edition of UEFA's European Under-17 Football Championship. Serbia hosted the tournament between the 3 and 15 May. 6 Teams also qualified for the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup. Players born aft ...

and a third place at the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

in Mexico. He then started working with the new generation of U-16 players. On 11 July 2012, Freund was appointed assistant head coach of

. On 5 August 2014 he was appointed International Technical Coordinator. On 21 April 2017, while on Sky Sports, Freund stated that he was not interested in getting back into coaching. He instead was enjoying the freedom from pressure which he was experiencing as a pundit.

Television career

In 2006, he appeared alongside

Boris Becker Boris Franz Becker (, ; born 22 November 1967) is a German former world No. 1 tennis player. Becker was successful from the start of his career, winning the Wimbledon Championships at the age of 17. He ultimately won six Grand Slam singles tit ...

in a special England v. Germany edition of the popular panel show '' They Think It's All Over''. At the start of the 2011–12 season, Freund began working as a

pundit A pundit is a person who offers mass media opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport). Origins The term originates from the Sanskrit term ('' '' ), meaning "knowledg ...

for

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its international sports unit, it operates two main channels— Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

's coverage of the German Bundesliga and

Sky Deutschland Sky Deutschland GmbH, branded as Sky, is a German media company that operates a direct broadcast satellite Pay TV platform in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (through Sky Switzerland). It provides a collection of basic and premium digital su ...

. He is also a co-commentator for the English world feed of the Bundesliga.

Personal life

Freund is married and has one son and two daughters. His son, Niklas, was as a football goalkeeper for SV Empor Berlin FC, having previously played for

VCD Athletic VCD Athletic Football Club (short for Vickers, Crayford & Dartford Athletic Football Club) is a semi-professional football club based in Crayford in south-east London, England. The club was founded in 1916, during the First World War, as a compa ...

and Redbridge, before switched over in May 2018 to

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

as Wide receiver for the Berlin Bears, Berlin Adler Academy and currently at

Berlin Rebels The Berlin Rebels are an American football team from Berlin, Germany. The team is playing in the German Football League, the highest level of American football in Germany. In the most recent seasons the Rebels managed to qualify for the play-off ...

in the German Football League.

Honours

Borussia Dortmund *

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footbal ...

: 1994–95, 1995–96 * DFB-Supercup:

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

: 1996–97 * Intercontinental Cup:

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

Tottenham Hotspur *

Football League Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by th ...

: 1998–99 Germany * European Championship:

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

Individual * Tottenham Hotspur Hall of Fame: December 2009 Inductee

References

External links

* * *
Steffen Freund
at tottenhamhotspur.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Freund, Steffen Living people 1970 births Sportspeople from Brandenburg an der Havel Men's association football midfielders Premier League players Expatriate footballers in England German footballers East German footballers Germany men's international footballers FC Schalke 04 players Borussia Dortmund players Tottenham Hotspur F.C. players Leicester City F.C. players 1. FC Kaiserslautern players German expatriate footballers UEFA Euro 1996 players 1998 FIFA World Cup players UEFA European Championship-winning players Bundesliga players German expatriate sportspeople in England Footballers from Brandenburg People from Bezirk Potsdam