BVB: A Rose between two Terzićs

A shock decision has triggered a Back To The Future special at Borussia Dortmund

There’s so much I’ve wanted to write at the end of the season, so there will be a miscellaneous sort of newsletter last week, touching on a bunch of things, and then a look at a couple of the most interesting teams of 2021/22 and maybe a few players who I think deserve a bit more attention.

For now, I feel obliged to talk about what the hell just happened at Borussia Dortmund.

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The Germans call it an Umbruch and you hear it a lot when the football season ends. We don’t have a word in English that fits so perfectly. It means a huge rebuild, really, but it’s a bit more radical and includes tearing everything down and starting fresh.

Every year Bayern Munich win the title and every year people say there will be an Umbruch at Borussia Dortmund but things don’t generally get torn down that much. Because how can you radically rebuild when only a few parts change?

This summer, though, Dortmund have actually gone all in. They’ve already signed two new centre-backs, they’re set to add a midfielder to replace the departed Axel Witsel (only Jude Bellingham played more minutes in midfield in 2021/22) and the sale of Erling Haaland has forced a revamp upfront. Karim Adeyemi has already joined there and another signing, a more traditional number nine, is also expected to arrive.

And now, out of nowhere, they’re changing coach too.

Marco Rose’s mutual agreement to leave the club was earth-shatteringly surprising. The club have publicly stuck by him despite some criticism this season and Dortmund still finished second in the league, achieving their stated minimum aim of always being in the Champions League. I’ll come onto how much sense whether or not another season under Rose would have made sense later but it very much appeared that Dortmund were building a team for him this summer.

Rose arrived with the promise of a return to the full-throttle pressing football that was so popular and successful when Jürgen Klopp was in charge at the Westfalenstadion. But he didn’t have the team to do it.

With Mats Hummels a stalwart at the back and Axel Witsel ahead of him, a high-line was always going to be exposed. Raphaël Guerreiro is a fine footballer well suited to combination play but doesn’t have the physical gifts or directness required to play high-tempo, more direct, more aggressive football. The same can be said of Julian Brandt. Marco Reus is 32 (almost 33) and the combination of injuries and age have put paid to his turn of pace.

They made up five of Dortmund’s eight outfield players with the most Bundesliga minutes in 2021/22. And so there was a stylistic compromise that Rose couldn’t do much about. These players couldn’t play the football he wanted. The squad is a horrible mesh of profiles thanks to the lack of direction since Klopp left.

Edin Terzić is set to takeover for a second time, this time permanently, and will be the club’s seventh head coach in seven years. There has not been a thread that connects his predecessors: what type of football does a Dortmund team play? Ehh, well, nobody is really sure anymore.

Which is what makes this change so confusing. Rose, for his first season, had an ill-fitting squad but Dortmund have taken huge steps in the transfer window to inject more pace, more power, and more directness into a number of key positions. And they aren’t even done yet.

And Rose didn’t even have the chance to find an established team in 2021/22. At the turn of the year, Dortmund had the most injured squad of the season so far, with players missing a total of 1715 days (47.6 days per player in the 36-man squad) per the excellent @fbinjuries.

Fußballverletzungen @fbinjuries

...🥁Und hier ist sie: Passend zum Rückrundenstart die große Verletzungsbilanz der Hinrunde. Mehr dazu wie immer im Blog: wp.me/p7fhuG-Hv #Bundesliga #FCB #BVB #SGE #Union #Mainz05 #VfB #dataviz #ddj

So on Thursday, when he sat down with the club’s bosses — outgoing sporting director Michael Zorc, his replacement Sebastian Kehl, CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke, and advisor Matthias Sammer — the decision to go their separate ways was agreed.

Kehl had already caused a storm a few weeks ago, saying ahead of the game against Greuther Fürth that he only “assumed” Rose would be in charge next season before correcting himself the following day.

“I can clearly say that I worded that badly, without meaning to,” he told the Sunday morning football talkshow Doppelpass.

“Of course now I know what’s been made of it but I can clearly say that I’m planning for next season with Marco and we’re preparing transfers right now, discussing those topics together.”

Kehl went on to say they would “sit down after the season to discuss some things, also some critically, and then hopefully we do them better together next season.”

But at some point in that discussion, which apparently lasted two hours on Thursday, it seems Rose felt he didn’t have the backing he needed to continue.

“Despite a difficult season with a lot of issues, I was convinced we were on the right path,” he said on Friday as his exit was announced.

“During out conversation, the impression grew within me that the 100% conviction of everyone involved was no longer there. In the end we decided together to end our co-operation.”

It really does not sound like either side entered Thursday’s meeting planning to call things off. Dortmund have, within the space of 24 hours, gone from looking like a club that has a plan and is executing it well — finally building a quality and coherent squad that can deliver the type of football Dortmund want to play — to a club that still looks directionless.

At least from the outside. And it’s all about communication, because there were very convincing reasons not to continue into 2022/23 with Rose yet it has still come as an enormous surprise.

BVB finished second in the league but conceded 52 goals, the most the club has conceded in a league campaign since 2007/08, with the season before that with more conceded coming in 1998. For balance, they also scored 85, the most the club has ever netted in a Bundesliga season.

They were knocked out of the group stage of the Champions League by Ajax and Sporting CP, then by Rangers in the Europa League and lost to 2. Bundesliga side St. Pauli in the DFB-Pokal. If the reason for not challenging Bayern is financial, then there are no excuses to look off the pace against these clubs.

There were an incredible eight defeats by 2+ goals. Three of those were by 3+ goals, to Ajax, Bayer Leverkusen and RB Leipzig. Dortmund took just three points from their six matches against Bayern Munich, Leverkusen and Leipzig during the season.

Parting ways with Rose makes sense when you look at all of that but the way it has happened, out of nowhere as they have made an effort to make a squad tailor-made for his way of playing, needs some explanation from a club that has been lacking in both stability and a clear idea.

The plaster has been well and truly torn off now. Dortmund will have a new coach and half a new starting line-up when the first day of the season rolls around in August.

Edin Terzić, the man who grew up in the stands and delivered silverware as preceded Rose as interim boss a year ago, is in line to take over permanently.

His Dortmund side was far from convincing in terms of performances last season but he got results, in large part thanks to the red-hot form of Jadon Sancho and Marco Reus, plus the presence of Erling Haaland, and he is loved as a local boy and a superb communicator who clearly understands the club and the fans.

That will mean Terzić has full backing from the stands, and maybe a coach should always leave when that trust from the club has become fragile, but it is going to be very hard to shake the feeling that Dortmund have shot themselves in the foot by not giving Rose a chance with a squad of players that actually makes sense. Maybe it’s best to go this way now than in October if next season starts slowly. Or maybe Dortmund have committed too much to an Umbruch after years of not committing enough to one.

Only time will tell.