There is an obvious contradiction at the base of “Borussia” Dortmund. BVB’s brand, the yellow and black, known around the world, is built on the idea that this super club, who reached the Champions League final in June, is a little different from their rivals.
The 80,000 fans in the Westfalenstadion, 25,000 crammed into the huge stand at the south end of the stadium, create a unique sound and history. Football as it should be, as the Bundesliga project says, superstars don’t buy here, they build.
Part of what defines Dortmund is also what they are not. Talk to the people at the club and they will say they want to be as big as they can be, but not be Bayern Munich. But the message is that they are family too. You should get it.
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Sky Sports News discuss the scenario of a Marcus Rashford-Erik Ten Hag reunion after it was reported that the former Manchester United manager could be a candidate for Borussia Dortmund.
It informed their latest coaching appointments.Edin Terzic had a compelling tale. He stood on the Yellow Wall as a boy before leading the club to their first Bundesliga win in a decade and, of course, a trip to Wembley last season.
When both Terzic and Dortmund were forced to admit that he might be lacking to get the job done, the club turned not to a super-coach, but to one of their own, with former player and local boy Nuri Sahin taking over.
Sahin is from Dortmund and that’s winning a lot in this part of the Ruhr region. Speaking to him shortly after his return to Dortmund, he explained it in emotional terms. “.
Were it not for the fact that his name had already gone down in Dortmund history, twice as a player, his time in charge at Turkish side Antalyaspor would hardly have been convincing enough to be asked.
Sahin, who initially returned as Terzic’s assistant, is an unusually bright individual and a keen student of the game, but adapting to the top job at the European giants leaves them at the bottom of the Bundesliga table.
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Four straight defeats in January highlighted the drop, the second of which was defeat at then-bottom Holstein Kiel, where Dortmund trailed by three at half-time and conceded a fourth even after their bottom rivals were reduced to 10.
This is far from everything until Shahin. Even the recruiting strategy has become less defined.The average age of the starting lineup against St. Pauli in October was almost 29 years old.
But Dortmund have just one win in nine away games in the Bundesliga, looking hopelessly disjointed and showing mistakes after an error-strewn performance, with faith in Sahin evaporating after limping into talk of a long-term prospect. Tuesday’s defeat in Bologna proved too much proved.
Is it time to rethink the whole strategy? That was the obvious question to ask CEO Carsten Kramer in their offices, but should it really be a Dortmund boy?
After all, this is a club that has won the Champions League just once, their defining moment in 1997, and that victory came under Swiss-born German Ottmar Hitzfeld, who spent most of his life playing and coaching in Switzerland .
His only German team as a player was VfB Stuttgart. Their other great manager, Jurgen Klopp, is a Swabian who had a long association with Mainz, not Dortmund, before the club won back-to-back titles and even the spirit of the club. to embody.
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If the two greatest coaches in Dortmund’s history are both foreigners who have raised the profile and mystique of the club like no local coach before or since, why has Kramer and his staff focused on coaches who simply get Dortmund? , rather than shaping it.
“That’s a good question,” Cramer said Sky Sports.
“Ottmar Hitzfeld was not hired and Jurgen Klopp was not hired because they were not From Dortmund. So I would say we were looking for the best guys who were available in that situation and we decided to take Hitzfeld and then we decided to take Klopp.
“Now we have a different time and, yes, it’s more than just a coincidence that Nuri Sahin is from Dortmund, Lars Rieken (sporting executive) is from Dortmund and at least Sebastian Kell (sporting director) says it suits us at the moment “.
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Kramer added: “We’re very happy to have Dortmund boys, but it’s not a strategy to just hire Dortmund. Lars will explain to you that the guy in charge of the youth department has never played for Dortmund and it was Lars who invited him to work.
“Nuri Sahin’s assistants are of course Lukasz (Piscek), but the others come from different places. So that’s good, but it’s not a clear request from the club that we just have to accept.”
But the guiding principle is commendable. Dortmund should never be a stepping stone. “We think that continuity and being loyal to this club and not seeing the club as a step in your career to move on as soon as possible is a big advantage in these times.”
Borussia Dortmund CEO Carsten Kramer
“It’s not doing anything because we’re complaining about the previous approach, but we know that the Dortmund mentality is very special and the higher the identification with the club, the more comfortable we feel with it.”
He expects the response. Comfortable? Is that really the goal here?” “I’d say let’s see,” he concedes. “Come back in two, three or four years, ask me the question again and I hope I’m right. And if not, I have to say you asked the right question.”
That question was asked not two years ago, but two months ago. But the Dortmunders have had to make a turn. Much has been made of the culture. And yet this is certainly not about someone’s past. Maybe Dortmund should start looking for theirs.
