Borussia Dortmund: Germany's colourful club caught in a vicious cycle

Borussia Dortmund: Deutschland's perennial Schwarzgelben. Their recent travails are a puzzling, maddening one. A great yellow wall unlike anywhere else; its distinct and intimidating noise engulfs North Rhine-Westphalia in a cloud of swirling passion as it vibrates the city. Placed high in the heavens of Westfalenstadion they set the precedent, whilst down below on the glorious green surface those vivid idolised figures continue to look up - not at their followers, but at their foes settled snugly in the south east corner of the country.

For eight of Dortmund’s previous nine campaigns since their last Bundesliga conquest in 2012, the table spits them out between 2nd and 4th position; Bayern Munich lifters of that dandy-looking Meisterschale in all the years that have followed. Formidable stuff. Inconceivable to your average Premier League sofa dweller, Manchester City’s recent dominance has at least been dented every now and again by the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Leicester City. And still they await that coveted Champions League title.

But back to the point at hand: how can a club of Dortmund’s stature, affluence and grandeur continuously wither to such Bavarian rivals? Of course, having a coliseum with the sport’s most revered fans will not simply win you football matches (especially when a hefty amount of them are currently prohibited from even turning the stadium’s turnstiles on match days). Yet Marco Rose’s current crop are good. Graced by some of the finest young talents that German football has to offer: Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham, Giovanni Reyna. Names that arrive with healthy heaps of hope; names that will likely soon cease to be associated with BVB.

It’s the Dortmund way. What started as a whimsical anecdote has transitioned to a full-blown verifiable truth. It’s a model that keeps the club afloat, but in terms of success they have checkmated themselves. In 2019 Christian Pulisic was sold to Chelsea for £58 million. Jadon Sancho, whom they purchased for a mere £8 million two years prior, was already an upgrade on the departed American. Then Manchester United came whispering, slamming a great sum of notes on the table for Sancho who became the second most expensive English signing at £73 million behind…Harry Maguire. Stellar business indeed, but Dortmund will care not.

Their policy of acquiring fledgling potential has naturally equated to immense transfer profit, a combined £150 million from Arsenal, Manchester City and United in recent years alone. That’s a bit of a rinsing. So too were Barcelona, who paid almost all of that amount in one lump sum with the £135.5 million transfer of Ousmane Dembele in 2017. A tad underwhelming since his initial landing at El-Prat Airport, he joins a growing list of players who leaves for hefty Euros, and under-performs upon arrival.

That’s all well and good in keeping the club afloat, yet on-field positivity appears undervalued to those in the leather seats. But the decision to leave a club rests not only with the tailored suits. Look above to the aforementioned names that dress in the yellow and black - the transparent trend is that none of them were born in Dortmund, let alone Germany. And trophyless droughts will induce increased departures for the shimmering stars that feel they deserve a glass of Dom Pérignon, rather than Lidl Prosecco. That is, unless Rose leads his battalion into a surprise dynasty, this persistent, deeply-rooted cycle shows few signals of ceasing.

Stability: it harnesses success. The pepper to a dripping steak, the flour to a swollen cake, Dortmund’s previous Bundesliga triumph under Jürgen Klopp in 2011-12 has since seen six different faces in the dugout. From Tuchel to Terzić, Bosz to Favre, only the latter has lasted *just* longer than two years. That’s not likely to achieve much. Sure, throw in the intermittent DFB-Pokal for some brisk acclaim, the vociferous many who wave the flags of pure sun concern only for their nation’s most valuable, circular prize.

Take Liverpool, for example. Often compared with one another in terms of support, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and Klopp, similarities arise in the form of football on the field. Before the current Liverpool manager took the helm of Anfield’s rectangular chalk box in 2015, ‘The Reds’ had endured a seemingly endless period of banality under similarly many managers. Now recognised as one of Europe’s — in turn the Earth’s — most electric, efficient footballing sides, it has stemmed from preserving (and carefully adding to) their distinguished side.

When Steven Gerrard left shortly before Klopp’s reign commenced, he joined a dying list of players who spent a tremendous bulk of his time at one club. Through years of false hope, mediocrity and even transfer speculation, still he remained, etching his own acclaimed name onto the walls of the city’s sporting cathedral. Another member of this increasingly exclusive society is Marco Reus: born in Dortmund, raised in Ahlen, the clinical forward will soon enter his tenth season at the club, yet to add a league title to a medal collection that reveals little more than a few domestic scalps. Loyalty or foolishness? To the final sands of hope he clings onto before being sucked down the hourglass.

Robert Lewandowski, Mario Götze, Mats Hummels…’so long, friends’. To München they went with honours soon to their names. Hummels returned a Bundesliga champion; Lewandowski continues to sparkle in the Bavarian red, haunting his former residence with each fleeting season. Far from the cutting-edge analysis, it’s not hard to see that selling to your closest competition is unwise. And soon Haaland will leave the Ruhr for a fresh opportunity for silverware. Don’t know when, don’t know where, they’ll meet again, just in a different colour will he be in.

And where else would Dortmund currently lie in the table other than second? Second best to Munich - soon enough this saying will be added to their extravagant tifo in the Kop, appearing through a misty haze of pyro. Six points adrift of Julian Nagelsmann’s men, and into the Europa League they've also spiralled. Another year of inferiority, uncertainty, frailty. They have all the components: a goalscorer, experience, youth, pride; quality - but until they gel as one, this disconnected club will always be stood cold in the shadow, straining their necks as they look to the red stars shining high above.