Road to Dortmund | BVB Fan Blog

Transfer Window.
Where else to start, of course! Transfer news across all major European football leagues is what dominated the headlines during the summer, rumors confirmed and debunked, social media exploding and… now it’s over. Finally, I would add. While I really like to follow the transfer news and rumors, seeing how mid Premier League clubs buy decent but not great (by top league(s) standards) players for 40-80M is overkill of epic proportions that just doesn’t feel right. If there has been any doubts whatsoever, it’s crystal clear now that English clubs, with their budgets filled by massive TV deals and oil money, are playing at a different level. The transfer spending gap between Premier League and other top European leagues has never been this big. UEFA is tweaking it’s financial fair play regulations again to limit clubs’ spending to 70% of their revenue, but there is clearly need to simplify and streamline the investigation and review of transactions allowing for circumvention of these rules. The Manchester City case has been running for almost two years now with some pieces of evidence going 15 years back and there is no conclusion yet. Not good enough, at all. Seeing how Premier League clubs buy from each other for ridiculous amounts of money, each one trying to balance their books, is also becoming quite comical.

But how did the transfer window play out for Borussia Dortmund. I think this question comes down to whether you’re, in general, supportive of current management and Sporting Director Sebastian Kehl, or not. Because, it really seems that in the end, he got the players he wanted, had to play a bit of poker to get it done, but eventually, he did.

Secured Jobe Bellingham transfer early.

Was super bullish on Carney Chukwuemeka transfer and got it done eventually – for 25M EUR + allegedly a buy-back clause for Chelsea, which we do not know how big it is. In any case, Carney is a BVB player and that is what matters now. And we all know how good he is – off of his performance with BVB last season, this is a 80M EUR player we got for fraction of the price, because of his injury risks.

Along with him came Aaron Anselmino on a dry loan, i.e. no option to make the move to BVB permanent – this is likely the main drawback from my perspective, dry loans is a small club behavior, BVB should be able to secure option to buy for players we’re taking on loan. And if Anselmino’s first game vs Union is anything to go by (more on that later), it will hurt if we don’t manage to keep him beyond this season. But for now, it is what it is, and it looks like he will be a strong addition to the D corps.

Fabio Silva is Portuguese wonderkid who debuted for FC Porto as 16 year old, got a big money move to Premier League still as teenager and then struggled to find his game across number of loans in European leagues. At 23 now, his redemption season was perhaps last year’s loan at Las Palmas where, playing 24 games and scoring 10 goals, he was the teams best scorer and recorded 25% of all team’s goals in La Liga. Pretty impressive. BVB paid around 25M EUR for Silva, which by today’s standards, is not a steep price.

Patrick Drewes should bring experience an stability to the backup GK position.

Where I believe Kehl has done a great job is departures. I’m not going into detail here, but Haller, Moukoko, Coulibaly and Rayna all had complicated past with no future at the club so for all of them it was time to go. Gittens was sold to Chelsea for 64M EUR, which considering he wanted to leave and was not a core player by any stretch of imagination, is a great piece of business. Also reflecting back on my comments earlier on transfer fee situation driven by Premier League. One year loans of Watjen and Ramaj should secure experience for both as they should, hopefully, develop into strong players for the team in future years.

If there is one element that did not go well, in context of injuries to Schlotterbeck, Sule, Can and Ryerson, it’s the timing of deal which brought in Carney and Anselmino. The fact team had to start Filippo Mane in game vs St Pauli, and how that played out, cost the team two Bundesliga points. How much two points mean in the long run, we do know all too well considering how the team finished last season – deduct two points and Dortmund doesn’t play in Champions League this season. Mane is a talented player but, as is, is not ready for the big stage yet – not to start a game and play full 90 minutes. Although the red card decision by the refs was just pure rubbish – no matter the arguments of the ‘new’ approach to the rules applied by DFB – if they wanted to stay consistent on the rules, at the level we have seen in St Pauli game, we end up seeing least 1-2 red cards each game. In any case, had Kehl make sure Kovac has proper options at CB at the time of start of competitive season, BVB comes out with three points from that game.

The games.
Now speaking of games and how we entered the season, now three games in, the positive takeaway is that the performance have had a clear positive trajectory.
In DFB Pokal game vs Essen, the team looked tired, slow, out of sync, like they didn’t know what to do. Defense was shaky, offense with no creative ideas and passing was inaccurate. The only reason why Dortmund won the game was simply quite staggering difference in individual quality, resulting in Guirassy scoring the lone goal of the game. Big props to Essen team for the way they played. For BVB, certainly a game that everyone was happy to just put behind them.

The first game of Bundesliga season was not going to be easy – St Pauli is touted as one of relegation candidates, but had #2 defenses in the league last season, with only Bayern conceding fewer goals. That is super impressive. Their undoing has been the inability to score goals, having scored the lowest amount of goals in the league. So this is a difficult opponent to face because they know how to defend, they were going to rely on defense and attack when allowed space – and BVB, with only Anton as a healthy starting central defender, yeah, the writing was on the wall this is not going to be easy. As a matter of fact, while St Pauli had it’s moments, and defense indeed looked shaky, BVB managed to get to a point where 85 minutes into the game, they had a 3-1 lead. Dortmund got goals from Guirassy and Anton, before Brandt score a goal which reminded everyone what kind of player he is, when he’s on his game. But then the Mane incident happened and St Pauli scored from penalty spot to make it 3-2. Dortmund players than did something I always always hate to see – you’re a man down and you have a lead, and there’s few minutes to go. Do not ever become passive and let opponent do whatever they want. That’s what led to the equalizer. Bad break, poor outcomes but as I said. Overall performance was considerably better than the Pokal game vs Essen.

Bundesliga home opener vs Union was just a great day of football. First, the amazing choreo decorated the Yellow Wall and then the game itself. Now I wouldn’t say this was a super memorable game with ton of highlight reel plays, but in my view – it was just a solid, composed, deliberate performance form the team. The kind of game you’d be happy to watch 32 more times during this season. it wasn’t flawless, Guirassy missed few chances, Kobel had to make few saves to remind us why he’s so essential to this team. But then Guirassy also scored a brace. Couto continued to impress driving creativity from the right flank. Midfield actually worked really well. Maxi Beier had a bit slow start but then provided a great assist via link up play with Guirassy.
But the story of the evening for me was Anselmino. This was his first game for Dortmund, he was relied to play from the start – and he absolutely crushed it. Read the game well, contributed to build up play, synced well with his team mates and made a few key defensive plays to top it off. Just all round solid work. It was one game, so I’m not going to call him a star just yet, but there is a player in there, no doubt. Anton and Bensebaini do deserve props as well though since they helped Anselmino a lot by playing solid games themselves.

All in all, St Pauli result is bitter one but the win vs Union and the positive trend in performance is encouraging.
Team is through to next round of DFB Pokal, which is important.
Next opponent is one of the favorites to win the competition, Eintracht Frankfurt. The game will be played in Frankfurt and will be an ultimate test of BVB’s ability and will to go far in the Pokal. Tough draw but either it’s a win – boosting confidence and eliminating one of the top opponents in process. Or it’s a loss and game over in the competition. DFB Pokal is difficult to win, the format doesn’t allow for mistakes or second chances, but is also one I think BVB has a best shot at, given Niko Kovac’s style of play and history – as a head coach he did win the Pokal twice, with Bayern in 2019 and Frankfurt in 2018, as well as losing in final once with Frankfurt in 2017. He also led Monaco to French cup final in 2021, losing to PSG.

What’s next.
Three games in, we have seen the good and bad from BVB, which is no surprise. Now after the international break the team will head into Heidenheim for Bundesliga round #3 on Sep 13, and then off to Italy for a Champions League kick-off vs Juventus. Great opportunity for revenge, after Juve hijacked Mats Hummels’ farewell party in August. The choreo at the beginning of the Union game was clear, ‘it’s about what you do on the pitch’. And it does look like players have taken that to the heart, which should give us fans some solid optimism for upcoming months. Heja BVB.