Mark Flekken from SC Freiburg: The goalkeeper with a very fine feel for the ball

When Mark Flekken opted out of German as a foreign language at school, he had no idea that he would later make a name for himself as a football goalkeeper in Germany.

In the past six months, the Dutchman has had a career in fast-forward mode at SC Freiburg, after the previous years as a professional footballer, also due to injuries, passed rather slowly for him, almost as if someone had pressed the pause button.

All the more he can now classify and enjoy the good phase.

“I can be very, very satisfied with how everything has gone so far,” says Flekken.

That is almost an understatement.

He played a big part in the fact that Freiburg surprisingly finished third in the Bundesliga after the first half of the season, Flekken only conceded 16 goals and ended a game six times without an opposing goal - Manuel Neuer from leaders Bayern Munich comes up with exactly these numbers .

Flekken, himself a father of two, is far too well brought up to compare himself to the 2014 world champion.

But there are certainly parallels: He only gets a few balls on goal, "because we're so good defensively".

He tells all of it calmly, pointedly and in perfect German.

Louis van Gaal knows

His trademark are his fine feet, with which he sometimes does things that some field players would like to do. For example, in 2016 he scored a goal with the heel at the then third division club MSV Duisburg - to equalize 1-1 in injury time. "My football training was very important to my parents, who are both coaches," emphasizes Flekken. Up to the age of ten he was exclusively an outfield player. "As you can see, that did quite a bit for my goalkeeping game."

In fact, so much that the Dutch national coach Louis van Gaal noticed him and nominated him as a substitute for the World Cup qualifiers against Latvia and Gibraltar in October. Van Gaal then frankly admitted that he hadn't even known Flekken before. "Mark is incredibly good with his feet, you can't imagine that," praised van Gaal now. He is still amazed that he was called to the Elftal as a regular goalkeeper in Freiburg after just ten weeks, says Flekken. “I thought that I would have to play at this level in the Bundesliga for a longer period of time.” But van Gaal now knew who he was dealing with.

The former Bayern coach quickly realized that it would be a mistake to reduce Flekken solely to his footballing skills. After all, the 1.94 meter tall goalkeeper also has good positional play and insane reflexes. In the game against Mainz, for example, he quickly blocked Jonathan Burkhardt's shot into the short corner with his right foot when it appeared alone in front of him. "I want to be the most complete goalkeeper I can be," he says.

His club trainer Christian Streich is happy that “Flekki”, as he calls him, “is in our box, that gives us a good feeling”.

It all started out pretty bumpy for Flekken in Freiburg.

In the first two years, Alexander Schwolow was clearly number one.

Only when he joined Hertha BSC in the summer of 2020 did Flekken finally become his successor.

He had to wait so long for this moment.

At the age of 16 he left his home to make the dream of many young people come true at Alemannia Aachen, the dream of professional football.

He finally landed in the Bundesliga via Greuther Fürth and Duisburg.

Not the first serious injury

But then he injured his elbow so badly while warming up before the first Freiburg cup game of the season that he had to be operated on. “That blew my mind at first,” admits Flekken. The first week in particular, when it was still uncertain whether an operation was necessary, was the most difficult. He was sitting at home, depressed, "and one or two tears flowed down my cheek". But when it was established that the torn ligaments of the dislocated joint had to be patched up on the operating table, he felt better. “I knew what to expect,” he says.

It wasn't the first serious injury for Flekken. In Fürth he had already torn his cruciate ligament and was out for almost eight months. This time he had to wait that long until he was fully recovered. “I experienced difficult moments during rehab and was impatient because I wanted to be back on the pitch as soon as possible.” During this time, Flekken was helped by the trust of the club as well as his family. Streich had always assured him that he would stay number one when he came back. "That is why I am happy that I can now repay this trust with strong performance."

Mark Flekken wants to collect the necessary points against relegation as quickly as possible with SC Freiburg - they are third after the first half of the season. But he has long since internalized the modesty of the Freiburg people. Of course, he would have nothing against a place that qualifies for the Europa League. "We want to stay up there for as long as possible," he says before the first second round match on Saturday (3:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky) against Bielefeld.

One story, however, will continue to haunt him - it went around the world as a video snippet and was pure slapstick.

When he was still in the goal of MSV Duisburg in 2018, he sucked with relish on his drinking bottle after a hit and did not notice in his back how the game was going on again and Ingolstadt took advantage of the situation.

In the meantime Flekken laughs about it and says: "That would no longer be possible today, because the video referee first checks every goal and so there is more time to drink."