SC Freiburg mourns the death of Maximilian Heidenreich. As the club confirmed on Wednesday, the former libero passed away after a serious illness.
“The Sport-Club mourns the loss of Maximilian Heidenreich. The former SC Freiburg libero passed away today at the age of 57 after a serious illness. Our thoughts are with his family and friends,” the club wrote on Wednesday evening.
As reported by the Badische Zeitung, Heidenreich died as a result of bowel cancer. As an athlete, Heidenreich was one of the players who really put the Sport-Club on the Bundesliga map. Between 1992 and 1997, he was on the ball for the Sport-Club, making 173 appearances and scoring 11 goals. His greatest successes with the club, which earned him the nickname “Breisgau Brazilian” due to his refreshing style of play, were promotion to the Bundesliga in 1993 and qualifying for the UEFA Cup in third place two years later.
Breakthrough in Hannover – end in Wattenscheid
His career once began somewhat unexpectedly in Hanover in the 2nd division. In the mid-1980s, the 96ers, who were then experiencing severe financial difficulties, made a virtue out of necessity and filled their squad with young players. One of them was Heidenreich, who was only 17 at the time. He seized his chance, played his way into the first eleven and helped Hannover to be promoted to the Bundesliga in 1984/85.
He played a total of 106 competitive games for Hannover between 1984/85 and 1986/87, and a further 11 after a brief spell with Eintracht Frankfurt (17 games in the 1988/89 season), before joining Volker Finke’s SC Freiburg in 1992/93. He ended his career in Wattenscheid at the end of the 1990s, after playing 11 competitive games for VfL Wolfsburg in 1997/98.
After his professional career ended, he remained loyal to football – as an amateur coach for Freiburger FC, SV Weil, Blau-Weiss Wiehre and FC Denzlingen.