Borussia Dortmund reinventing themselves — again

There wasn’t much about Borussia Dortmund’s 1-1 draw against Hoffenheim on Saturday that suggested they were set to challenge Bayern Munich for the Bundesliga title.

For much of the match, Dortmund struggled to find traction. Hoffenheim outplayed them in every phase of play for much of the 90 minutes, and were it not for some heroics from Dortmund keeper Roman Bürki, some unusual officiating and a wild stoppage time miss, this could easily have been an embarrassing loss for the visitors.

The draw might have justifiably frustrated Hoffenheim, but for Dortmund and their new coach Lucien Favre it might serve as something like validation.

Dortmund have spent much of the last four years attempting to recreate the magic of the Jürgen Klopp era.

First came the appointment of the heir apparent, Thomas Tuchel. When the former Mainz man proved inexplicably unpopular in Germany despite keeping Dortmund competitive, last summer the club turned to former Ajax coach Peter Bosz. When Dortmund slipped to 8th place before the winter break, the man who led FC Köln back to the first division in 2014, Peter Stöger, was brought in. He would subsequently be let go at the end of the season despite securing a Champions League berth for Dortmund.

Unlike the managerial merry-go-round that often happens in the English Premier League, there was a science to these decisions. Dortmund aren’t Manchester United, simply hiring a new coach off of name recognition and past glories, and ignoring any stylistic differences between them.

Instead, there is a clear throughline visible here, both off the pitch and on it. When Klopp took over at the end of the last decade, Dortmund were a mid-table side struggling to get back to the prominence of the 1990s. By the time he left, Dortmund had won two Bundesliga titles and a domestic cup, and even managed to make it into the Champions League final in 2013.

The popular narrative goes that Dortmund achieved this turnaround thanks to Klopp’s innovative system that now pervades the soccer landscape in Germany and England:

gegenpressing

. While it is absolutely correct to say that Klopp’s mix of intense pressing and counterattacking play made a mark on the modern game, it wasn’t the whole story.

Closer to the heart of Dortmund’s success was a commitment to find and then develop unknown, or undervalued, talent. Who’s to say how well Klopp’s tactical gambit would have paid off had he not dragged Robert Lewandowski from obscurity in Poland, or if Dortmund’s youth system hadn’t nurtured and honed the skills of a young Mario Götze. 

Tuchel, Bosz and Stöger all offered a style fairly consistent with Klopp’s gegenpressing, but more importantly they came from teams and setups that leaned heavily on savvy recruitment and development. Dortmund wanted men who knew how to do a lot with relatively little resources.

Now, it’s not fair to say Dortmund lack resources. They have regularly qualified for Europe since the Klopp era, and have made hefty profits from the sales of players they helped develop like Lewandowski and Götze. Rather than reinvest their prestige and money in big-named players though, Dortmund have continued on the same course which originally brought them success nearly ten years ago.

The appointment of Favre this past summer fits this pattern exceedingly well. The Swiss coach has made an entire career of building up small-to-midsize teams while relying on youth and diamonds in the rough. It was he who led Hertha Berlin when they flirted with the title in 2008/09, Borussia Mönchengladbach when they qualified for the Champions League, and Nice when became a force to be reckoned with in France. 

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At each club, Favre typically eschewed big signings in favor of player development or savvy deals on the transfer market. It’s that proclivity that Dortmund value in their managers, and it made Favre the natural next best option after years of struggling to find the right fit.

Which isn’t to say that Favre lacks an on-field identity to match his exploits off the pitch. His tactics, like those of Klopp and Tuchel and the rest, favor intense organization and a high press focused around making the most of counterattacking situations. The Swiss joined Dortmund to find a back office aligned with his values as well as a team already primed to play his flavor of soccer.

Saturday’s 1-1 draw was far from a perfect expression of a Favre team, and it wasn’t a match that met the standards of Klopp’s Dortmund. What it was though was a near perfect distillation of how Dortmund have found success in the past — and how they will likely find success again in the future.

Consider the starting XI. Four players hail from Dortmund’s Klopp era, including the man with the captain armband, Marco Reus. The German national team winger being named captain prior to the season made a lot of sense; it was under Favre at Gladbach that Reus first blossomed and earned his move to Dortmund in 2012.

At centre-back, Favre named two young relative newcomers to the club. Manuel Akanji has played every minute of the season so far, while his partner Abdou Diallo would have made a similar boast were it not for a particularly harsh second yellow 15 minutes from full-time.

In the middle of the park, Dortmund veteran Mahmoud Dahoud — who, incidentally, also got his start in the Bundesliga under Favre at Gladbach — was joined by Belgium’s Axel Witsel. After a season out of Europe in the Chinese Super League, the versatile midfielder came to Dortmund for cheap — only €20 million in an otherwise inflated market.

And then, of course, there’s Christian Pulisic. The 20-year-old United States international scored the goal in the 84th minute that kept this from being Dortmund’s first loss of the season. The goal was long in coming; prior to his late game equalizer, Pulisic was easily Dortmund’s biggest through and arguably should have earned a penalty in the first half that would have seen the visitors take the lead.

All these pieces didn’t fit as snugly together as Favre might have liked on Saturday, but there’s real promise here. If Favre can continue to get the best from Pulisic, snap up bargains like Witsel and pull off some of his old tricks with other promising youngsters like Achraf Hakimi, Jadon Sancho and Dan-Axel Zagadou — all teenagers, all on the bench for Saturday’s match — there’s a chance that Dortmund can find themselves at or near the top of the Bundesliga once again.