Borussia Dortmund fired Nuri Sahin: What went wrong? Do the Bundesliga giants really need a 'Boy from Dortmund'? | Football News

There is an obvious contradiction at the heart of Borussia Dortmund. The BVB brand, the yellow and black that is popular around the world, is built on the idea that this super club, the finalists of the Champions League in June, are a little different from their rivals.

The 80,000 fans inside the Westfalenstadion, 25,000 crammed into that huge grandstand at the south end of the stadium, create a unique sound and story. Football as it should be, as the Bundesliga spiel says. They don't buy superstars here, they build them.

In part, what defines Dortmund is also what they are not. Talk to people at the club and they will say they want to be as big as they can be, but not Bayern Munich. Dortmund is huge. But the message is that they are family too. You have to take that.

That informed their recent coaching appointments. Edin Terzić had a convincing story. He stood on the Yellow Wall as a boy before taking the club to the brink of their first Bundesliga triumph in a decade and, of course, that trip to Wembley last season.

When both Terzic and Dortmund were forced to admit that he may be missing that little bit to finish the job, the club did not turn to a super coach for a super club, but – again – to one of their own. Former player and local boy Nuri Sahin took over.

Sahin is a Dortmund man and far exceeds that in this part of the Ruhr region. Speaking to him shortly after his return to Dortmund, he explained it emotionally. “I listened with my heart and my heart said the club needs you so come back and help the club.”

If it wasn't for the fact that his name was already woven into Dortmund's history, through two spells as a player, then his time at the helm of Turkish club Antalyaspor would probably be compelling enough to ask.

Sahin, who originally returned as Terzic's assistant, is an unusually bright individual and an avid student of the game. But adjusting to taking over the top job at the European giant proved difficult. It leaves them languishing in the bottom half of the Bundesliga table.

Four successive defeats in January underlined the slide, the second of which was at then-bottom club Holsten Kiel in which Dortmund lost three at the break and conceded a fourth even after their weak opponents were reduced to 10.

This is not all about Sahin. The brand of high-tempo football that Dortmund was known for is now not so clear. Even the recruitment strategy has become less defined. Against St Pauli in October, the average age of the starting line-up was almost 29.

But Dortmund have won just once in nine Bundesliga away games, looking hopelessly disjointed and turning in error-filled performances. Faith in Sahin has evaporated as attempts to limp by talking about the long-term outlook have become unsustainable. The 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, there was an obvious question to ask general manager Carsten Cramer. It was dangerous to say in their offices, but do you really need to be a Dortmund guy?

After all, this is a club that has won the Champions League just once, their defining moment in 1997, and that triumph came under Ottmar Hitzfeld, a German who was born on the Swiss border, playing and coaching 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 Schwab, who had a long association with Mainz, not Dortmund, before leading the club to back-to-back titles and even becoming the epitome of club spirit.

If the two greatest coaches in Dortmund's history are both outsiders who raised the club's prestige and mystique like no local coach before or since, then why have Cramer and his crew fixated on coaches who only get Dortmund, not shape it?

“That's a good question,” Cramer said Sky Sports.

“Ottmar Hitzfeld was not engaged and Jurgen Klopp was not engaged because they they weren't from Dortmund. So I would say we looked for the best guys 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 is more than a coincidence that Nuri Sahin is a Dortmund guy, Lars Ricken (Sporting Executive Director) is a Dortmund guy and at least Sebastian Kehl (Sporting Director) too. Let's just say it suits us right now.”

Cramer added: “We are very happy to have Dortmund boys, but it is not a strategy to just hire Dortmund boys. Lars will explain to you, the guy who runs the youth department has never played for Dortmund and Lars invited him to work for Dortmund.

“Nuri Sahin's assistant coaches, there's Lukasz (Piszczek) of course, but the others come from different places. So that's something that's good to have, but it's not a clear request from the club that we just have to take the boys from Dortmund.”

But the guiding principle is commendable. Dortmund should never be a stepping stone. “We think that continuity and commitment to this club and not looking at the club as a career step to move forward as quickly as possible is a huge asset in these times.”

Cramer added: “Nothing is being done because we complain about the previous approach, but we know that Dortmund's mentality is very special and the more we identify with the club, the more comfortable we feel in it.”

He predicts the answer. Comfortable? Is that really the goal here. “I would say, let's see,” he admits. “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 two months ago, not two years. But Dortmund were forced to turn around. Much is made of culture and it is clearly important. And yet, this is surely not about someone's past but about their future. Maybe Dortmund should start looking for their own.