Borussia Dortmund dismisses Nuri Sahin: What went wrong? Do the Bundesliga giants really need a 'Dortmund man'? | Football news

There is a clear contradiction at the heart of Borussia Dortmund. BVB's branding, in the yellow and black colors famous around the world, is built on the idea that this superclub, which reached the Champions League final in June, is a little different from its rivals.

80,000 fans inside the Westfalenstadion, 25,000 packed into that wide stand at the south end of the stadium, create a unique sound and story. Football as it should be, as the Bundesliga says. They don't buy stars here, they build them.

In part, Dortmund's definition is also about what they are not. Talk to people within the club and they will say they want to be as big as possible, but not Bayern Munich. Dortmund is huge. But the message is that they are family too. you have to Get it.

Recent training appointments have been reported. Edin Terzic had a compelling story. He stood on the yellow wall as a boy before taking the club to the brink of winning the Bundesliga for the first time in a decade, and of course that trip to Wembley last season.

When both Terzic and Dortmund were forced to admit that perhaps they lacked a little something to finish the job, the club turned not to a top coach of a top club, but – again – to a coach of their own. Former player and local boy Nouri Sahin took over.

Sahin is a Dortmund man and that excels a lot in this part of the Ruhr area. Speaking to him shortly after his return to Dortmund, he put it in emotional terms. “I listened to my heart and he told me the club needs you, so you have to come back and help the club.”

If his name had not already been woven into Dortmund's history, across two spells as a player, it is unlikely his time as coach of Turkish club Antalyaspor would have been compelling enough to even be asked.

Sahin, who initially returns as Terzic's assistant, is an extraordinarily intelligent person and a keen student of the game. But adjusting to taking over the top job at a European giant has been difficult. It has left them languishing in the bottom half of the Bundesliga table.

Four successive defeats in January highlighted this decline, the second of which was a loss to bottom club Holsten Kiel, where Dortmund were three goals down in the second half and conceded a fourth even after their modest rivals had dropped to 10 points.

This is not all down to Shaheen. The fast-paced style of football that Dortmund was famous for is no longer evident. Even the recruitment strategy has become less defined. Against St. Pauli in October, the average age of the starting lineup was around 29 years old.

But Dortmund have won just once in nine away games in the Bundesliga, looking hopelessly disjointed, turning in error-filled performance after error-filled performance. Confidence in Shaheen has evaporated, and attempts to falter in talking about the long term have become unacceptable. Defeat in Bologna on Tuesday proved too much.

Is it time to rethink the entire strategy? On a visit to the city earlier this season, that was the obvious question to ask managing director Carsten Kremer. It felt like a dangerous idea to say within their offices, but do you really need to be a man in Dortmund?

After all, this is a club that has only won the Champions League once, the decisive moment in 1997, and that victory came under the leadership of Ottmar Hitzfeld, a German who was born on the Swiss border and played and coached in Switzerland for most of his life. life.

His only German team as a player was VfB Stuttgart. Their other great coach, Jurgen Klopp, is a Swabian, and had a long association with Mainz rather than Dortmund before leading the club to successive titles and even embodying the club's spirit.

If the two greatest coaches in Dortmund's history were both outsiders, and raised the club's prestige and mystique like no other domestic coach had ever done before, then why would Kremer and his staff focus on Dortmund-only coaches rather than shaping it?

“It's a good question,” Kramer said. Sky Sports.

“Ottmar Hitzfeld was not signed and Jurgen Klopp was not signed because they It wasn't From Dortmund. So I would say that we were looking for the best players available in this situation and we decided to include Hitzfeld and then we decided to include Klopp.

“Now we have a different time, and yes, it is more than a coincidence that Nuri Sahin is a Dortmund guy, Lars Ricken (the sporting CEO) is a Dortmund guy, and at least Sebastian Kehl (the sporting director) too. I would say right now it suits us. “

Kremer added: “We are very happy to have Dortmund youth, but recruiting Dortmund youth is not a strategy. Lars will explain to you, the man who runs the youth department never played for Dortmund and it was Lars who invited him to work.” For Dortmund.

“Nuri Sahin's assistant coaches, there is of course Lukas (Piszczyk), but the others come from different places. So it is good that we have him, but it is not a clear requirement by the club that we must accept him.” Dortmund guys!

But the guideline is laudable. Dortmund should not be a starting point. “We believe that continuity and commitment to this club and not seeing the club as a step in your career to move forward as quickly as possible is a huge advantage in the current times.”

Kramer added: “Nothing has been done because we complain about the previous approach, but we know that Dortmund’s mentality is very special and the more we are connected to the club, the more comfortable we feel towards it.”

He expects a response. comfortable? Is that really the goal here? “I would say, let's see,” he admits. “Come back in two, three, four years, and ask me the question again, and I hope I'm right. If not, I have to say you've asked the right question.”

This question was asked two months ago, not two years ago. But Dortmund was forced to convert. A lot has been made of culture and it is clearly important. However, it is definitely not about someone's past, but about their future. Maybe Dortmund need to start looking at them.