Miguel Delaney: How Borussia Dortmund can be the saviours of the Champions League
A match-day scarf prior to the UEFA Champions League semi-final first leg match against Paris Saint-Germain at Signal Iduna Park. Photo: Getty
As Borussia Dortmund prepare for their biggest European game in 11 years, they’re also thinking about next year. There is increasing talk around the club about bringing Jurgen Klopp back as head of football in 2025. He wouldn’t be manager but the overall figurehead.
For some at Dortmund, this is the inevitable end point of a long period that has seen them hark back to the 2010-13 glory era, constantly rehiring familiar figures.
That isn’t necessarily seen as a good thing, either. There’s a strong argument it has prevented them progressing as a club.
They don’t even have truly great young talent they can immediately sell on right now, in the way they have sustained the club but arguably gone nowhere. It does still play into a vision that was created from that period, that frames these entire Champions League semi-finals even beyond their own meeting with Paris Saint-Germain.
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That spell saw Dortmund cast as a model for how to do football right. They had put it up to far wealthier rivals through stirring play, all fired by a raucous fanbase that are members of the club.
Such lasting qualities have now afforded them another status for the end of this Champions League season.
They are being cast as the potential “saviours” of the competition, given who they’re surrounded by. The unexpected disruption of the Premier League’s financial power has only seen other forces fill the vacuum. PSG are an even more overt sportswashing project than Manchester City, given they are owned by Qatar Sports Investment.
Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are as establishment as you can get. The Spanish club are the most successful in the competition’s history, with 14 victories, Bayern the third most successful with six.
Almost more importantly in the modern game, both have been the most influential voices at European club level, essentially dictating policy and economic strategy for decades.
When Michel Platini’s exit as Uefa president left another vacuum in 2016, it was Bayern and Madrid who led the way in seeking to change regulation so the most successful clubs got more prize money. They were also influential in the move to next season’s expanded Champions League, often quipped about in the game as “the Super Champions League”.
It shouldn’t be overlooked that Dortmund were invited to the initial European Super League back in April 2021, too, of course. They shouldn’t be the most compelling underdogs. Dortmund are still the 12th wealthiest club in the world going by Deloitte’s last Football Money League. It reminds how every club is someone else’s Bayern Munich. It’s just that they’re still nowhere near the level of their semi-final counterparts. This is how the modern game has gone.
No one with a revenue of less than €460m has won the Champions League since 2013. That was still Bayern Munich, and they still beat Dortmund.
Now, were Dortmund to somehow do it this season, they would break that trend. They have a revenue of “just” €420m, going by last season.
The twist to all of this is that they’re nowhere near the level of previous Dortmund sides, either. It’s difficult to think this team would beat even Thomas Tuchel’s side from 2015-16. The club’s approach has gone a bit stale, as if it needs a clear refresh. You only need to go through the squad, and how it features former stars such as Jadon Sancho and Mats Hummels, but also relative journeymen like Niklas Fullkrug and Marcel Sabitzer.
It has that classic look of a team where the model has been the same for too long, and most signings sort of become top-heavy filling of gaps. Karim Adeyemi is one of only a few players you would think emulate the best of their long-term ideology. They’ve been overtaken by other German clubs, even, who have more sophisticated and modern stances on the same core philosophy.
This Champions League season consequently represents such an outlier. It shouldn’t put off more rigorous debates about what the club needs. They’ve largely benefitted from the luck of the draw, if also canny but conservative management by Edin Terzic.
That almost proves the point, though. Over the last 15 years, Dortmund have had some “golden era” teams and yet they have one Champions League final. It would truly mean something to the club to do this. For PSG, sure, it would mean a lot for the fans but that is tempered by how much it would mean for Qatar. Bayern Munich won just four years ago. Real Madrid almost always won it.
Dortmund, even as the model has gone stale, would be something refreshing.
Borussia Dortmund v PSG
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