Dortmund on road back after year of recovery
Monday, December 21, 2015
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Borussia Dortmund were flirting with relegation this time last year, but, as Klaus Klump explains, things look much rosier this Christmas as Thomas Tuchel builds on Jürgen Klopp's work.
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Christmas 2014 was not a time of joy for Borussia Dortmund fans. Instead of challenging Bayern München for the Bundesliga title, the club were level with bottom side Freiburg with just 15 points from 17 games.
A year on, it is as if the table has been flipped upside down. Even after BVB's unexpected 2-1 loss to Köln on Saturday, the gap to pacesetters Bayern is a respectable eight points. So, what has changed in the past 12 months?
The obvious answer is that Dortmund have a new man at the helm after Jürgen Klopp ended his successful seven-year stint in charge in the summer. The recently appointed Liverpool manager won two Bundesliga titles, a German Cup and reached a UEFA Champions League final, but the magic looked to have worn off in 2014/15.
True, Borussia returned to the German Cup final and progressed comfortably from their UEFA Champions League group – before losing to Juventus in the last 16 – but their Bundesliga form left a lot to be desired. Klopp eventually felt that he had taken the team as far as he could and in April announced that he would vacate his post at the end of the season.
"It's the right time for a change at Borussia Dortmund," he said, and the decision itself seemed to alter the atmosphere at the club. As defender Mats Hummel – who became a German international under Klopp – explained: "My time with him couldn't have gone better in my wildest dreams. It's now a case of giving him the send-off he deserves."
Coach and players alike became determined to end the era with a place in the UEFA Europa League, and they eventually finished seventh to earn a berth in the third qualifying round. They could even have grabbed an automatic spot, but that hope disappeared as Dortmund lost the German Cup final to Wolfsburg.
The task of leading the team through to the group stage therefore fell on Klopp's replacement, Thomas Tuchel, who had earned a reputation for modern, attacking football during his time at Mainz. Far less extroverted than Klopp, the 42-year-old nonetheless promised a style of play that "always revolves around scoring goals", and his side promptly hit 17 of them in their four UEFA Europa League qualifiers.
They also began strongly in the Bundesliga, leading at the start and only really falling away after a 5-1 loss to Bayern on 4 October. In the words of Hamburg coach Bruno Labbadia, Dortmund can claim to be "the second best team in the league by some distance".
They owe that status in large part to the form of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has emerged as a genuine star under Tuchel. The Gabon forward has scored 18 goals in 17 league games this term and another seven in the UEFA Europa League, including qualifying.
Armenian international Henrikh Mkhitaryan has impressed as well, managing six top-flight goals and 11 assists overall, while Marco Reus has chipped in with eight Bundesliga efforts – meaning the trio have registered nearly 70% of all Borussia's goals this campaign.
Although Tuchel's record at the halfway stage is not as euphoric as it might have been following the loss in Cologne, it has still been a promising start to his tenure. "We'll have to go back through that game, but it doesn't make it a bad first half of the season," he said, and it is true that there are reasons to be optimistic in 2016.
For a start, Dortmund are due to face relegation-threatened Stuttgart in the German Cup quarter-finals and they are one of the favourites in the UEFA Europa League, even if they have to face Porto in the round of 32.
Meanwhile, their league position suggests a return to the UEFA Champions League next season is a tantalising possibility – all of which makes for a merry Christmas for supporters this time around. And perhaps the first of several more to come.