Bayern Munchen

Luftstalag14 said:

Dortmund is a selling club, that is their business model and at the end of the day it is a business for them (stock prices and profit matter a lot) so they don't really have any real ambitions these days, if they did before. Dortmund will not necessarily serve Bayern's interest, they will sell their players to the highest bidders.

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I mean, they give away their players for free, if Bayern asks real nicely.
One country, one flagship.

Seriously speaking, its just sad how they completely gave up competing with Bayern, after beating them two times to the title, meeting them in a CL-final.
The biggest capitulation i've ever seen from a rival, after the 2013-final they decided to call it a day and become Bayerns bitch, full-time.

Morten said:

I mean, they give away their players for free, if Bayern asks real nicely.
One country, one flagship.

Seriously speaking, its just sad how they completely gave up competing with Bayern, after beating them two times to the title, meeting them in a CL-final.
The biggest capitulation i've ever seen from a rival, after the 2013-final they decided to call it a day and become Bayerns bitch, full-time.

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That's not really true. They really wanted to keep Lewandowski (you could perhaps argue they could have started their renewal talks earlier and showered him with more money but hind sight is always clever) but the guy wanted to leave and refused to renew. Goetze and Hummels were different stories as they didn't leave for free. The former they lost due to Bayern triggering the release and the latter left with one year left (? if I am not mistaken) because he was adamant to not renew.

It is what it is in Germany. I think Dortmund had their dream to vie for the top spot before Bayern's established and cemented their total dominance last decade, Dortmund simply gave up and became realistic. The real hope in the long run lies with Leipzig in my opinion.

bayern 2016 team was on a similar level to this current team. if only muller didn't bottle that penalty

Morten said:

I mean, they give away their players for free, if Bayern asks real nicely.

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It really is a myth. Lewandowski essentially ran his contract down and refusing to get sold elsewhere, Goetze came through release clause and Hummels was in his last year of contract.

Contrary to very popular assumption but Dortmund isn't actually a selling club.
Go back the past 10 years, all the "stars" they sold fulfilled one of the following criterias

• release clause got triggered (only Goetze)
• had =<1 year left of contract and didn't want to renew
• literally went AWOL, insulted the whole club and striked themselves out.

There is no exception to these 3.
Name any Dortmund sale with hype in the 2010s, and he will have one of these 3 criterias fulfilled, Dortmund was never left with any actual choice in these sagas about their star players.

This falsely gave them the reputation of having some sort of "business model" to buy cheap and sell expensive, that is nonsense. The thing is, they are indeed genuinely attempting to build a great squad since years, but then some dudes contract runs on 1 year left and all of Europes top clubs show up and poach them with insane contract offers, promises of titles yadda yiddi yadda.

People are giving them a lot of shit, but what are they supposed to do?
They are actively trying with everything they have to create a squad with longetivity that breaks Bayern monopoly and challenges internationally. But all the players refuse contract renewals because they do not want to wait till Dortmund turns great. Nothing they can do about this instead of keeping this up, until one day players will begin to stay there.
In hindsight if all these players or at least most of them had just stayed, Dortmund would be a main contender for the CL title, arguably with a squad at Bayern/City level.

It doesn't matter that Dortmund players run down their contract to join the flagship, what matters is that Dortmund did not have the ambition and strength to keep them, or actually demand a transfer fee from Bayern, or ship them off abroad.

If they had the convictions of a top club, things would have been done differently, but they didnt, they accepted their role as Bayerns farmer club.

Morten said:

It doesn't matter that Dortmund players run down their contract to join the flagship, what matters is that Dortmund did not have the ambition and strength to keep them, or actually demand a transfer fee from Bayern, or ship them off abroad.

If they had the convictions of a top club, things would have been done differently, but they didnt, they accepted their role as Bayerns farmer club.

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What does "ambition" to keep them mean?
In reality ambition is just a fancy word for: They are not owned by some shady multi-billion dollar sheikh that can give the entire squad >10m+ contracts.

And "shipping abroad" or demanding a fee is not possible. They can't make Lewandowski sign a contract for another club against his will. If they had sold Lewandowski with one year left to Bayern people here would still complain. So they didn't, they refused Bayerns offer and guess what happens: He joined Bayern regardless.

No matter what they do, people will say they did it wrong. When really they do their actual best, but just cannot financially compete when another club doubles and triples their wage offer.

Yannik said:

What does "ambition" to keep them mean?
In reality ambition is just a fancy word for: They are not owned by some shady multi-billion dollar sheikh that can give the entire squad >10m+ contracts.

And "shipping abroad" or demanding a fee is not possible. They can't make Lewandowski sign a contract for another club against his will. If they had sold Lewandowski with one year left to Bayern people here would still complain. So they didn't, they refused Bayerns offer and guess what happens: He joined Bayern regardless.

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You know what it means.

Btw, Dortmund were not struggling for success back then, regular deep-runs in the CL is more than enough to keep off any serious economic struggles.
But instead of taking a bit of a gamble on that success, they just completely gave up.

It is, and always will be, the biggest capitulation of all time.

Xaviniesta said:

bayern 2016 team was on a similar level to this current team. if only muller didn't bottle that penalty

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15/16 Bayern was very strong and yeah probably as strong or a bit weaker.They outplayed Atletico and has several big chances to destroy them. I remember when Douglas Costa was unplayabale in the first half of 15/16

Morten said:

You know what it means.

Btw, Dortmund were not struggling for success back then, regular deep-runs in the CL is more than enough to keep off any serious economic struggles.
But instead of taking a bit of a gamble on that success, they just completely gave up.

It is, and always will be, the biggest capitulation of all time.

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No I really don't. Explain it, what "ambition" are they supposed to show?

Regular deep runs in the CL give about 50m in price money performance related. This is not enough in modern football to make it as a top club when a qatari sheikh or russian oligarch nonchalantly pumps in 300m into a club completely unrelated to how bad of a season they just had.

The unfortunate fact is quite simple that nowadays no club will ever establish a long term top-club status without either third party payment or historical backing. Any club can have a period of 2-3 great years, but this is not forever sustainable. Dortmund spend the last 10 years trying to do that. They were a midtable club that overachieved in the early 2010s because of a good coach and some lucky transfer decisions and then they thought "the past 2 years were very fun, but how can we use this momentum to actually become a top club and play like that every year?"

And they did actually a good job in longterm improving their club status. Now they are suddenly a team with the 2nd or 3rd highest budget in Germany, and they became a top 20 club in Europe. Barely any club had such a natural rise in the 2010s. But the financial gap to actual top clubs is astronomical.

Just imagine that: They spend the last 10 years constantly in CL knockout rounds and in the top 3 of their country. Their scouting department did an absolute insane job in discovering all these cheap talents, while the board somehow financially balanced a good squad together with about 30m transfer budget and 50m wage budget.

And yet, the 17th placed PL team can absolutely shit the bed, have not a single competent person in the board, do braindead signings, play dogshite and at the of the season they will still net twice Dortmunds whole budget in a year just by leeching off a ridiculous PL deal that they did nothing for.

"Ambition" means fuck all in this state of modern football.

Fati_Future_BallonDor said:

15/16 Bayern was very strong and yeah probably as strong or a bit weaker.They outplayed Atletico and has several big chances to destroy them. I remember when Douglas Costa was unplayabale in the first half of 15/16

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Atletico didn't create anything, then all of the sudden Saul turned into prime Messi, and that was the tie.
Absurd, really.

Yannik said:

It really is a myth. Lewandowski essentially ran his contract down and refusing to get sold elsewhere, Goetze came through release clause and Hummels was in his last year of contract.

Contrary to very popular assumption but Dortmund isn't actually a selling club.
Go back the past 10 years, all the "stars" they sold fulfilled one of the following criterias

• release clause got triggered (only Goetze)
• had =<1 year left of contract and didn't want to renew
• literally went AWOL, insulted the whole club and striked themselves out.

There is no exception to these 3.
Name any Dortmund sale with hype in the 2010s, and he will have one of these 3 criterias fulfilled, Dortmund was never left with any actual choice in these sagas about their star players.

This falsely gave them the reputation of having some sort of "business model" to buy cheap and sell expensive, that is nonsense. The thing is, they are indeed genuinely attempting to build a great squad since years, but then some dudes contract runs on 1 year left and all of Europes top clubs show up and poach them with insane contract offers, promises of titles yadda yiddi yadda.

People are giving them a lot of shit, but what are they supposed to do?
They are actively trying with everything they have to create a squad with longetivity that breaks Bayern monopoly and challenges internationally. But all the players refuse contract renewals because they do not want to wait till Dortmund turns great. Nothing they can do about this instead of keeping this up, until one day players will begin to stay there.
In hindsight if all these players or at least most of them had just stayed, Dortmund would be a main contender for the CL title, arguably with a squad at Bayern/City level.

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My memory is getting rusty, what about Sahin and Kagawa etc.? I remember they got the South Korean player Ji Dong-won for free and then sold almost immediately to Augsburg for some money. What I meant by Dortmund being a selling club doesn't mean they didn't want to hold on to their players, just pointing out because they were consistently raided by bigger clubs inside and outside of Germany so they have been resorting to buying young players, prospects and relatively unknown players for a small fee and reaping the benefit by selling them for a lot more money later, money that can be used to replenish their squad and start the cycle again. That is the reality for Dortmund that they can't easily change.

Of course, we can talk about why players don't want to commit to Dortmund for long, there are numerous factors such as their relative lack of competitiveness both domestically and internationally, salary and the relatively low profile of Bundesliga etc. The same reason many other Bundesliga clubs can't hold onto their players. However Dortmund, at least compared to Leverkusen with Voeller in charge who refused to sell their best players to Bayern, does appear quite willing or at least not so opposed to doing so.

Luftstalag14 said:

My memory is getting rusty, what about Sahin and Kagawa etc.?

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Kagawa had a contract till 2013, and was sold in 2012.
Sahins contract had a release clause, which was dated at a high price if he transfered within the league, and a lower price if a club abroad triggered it.

Luftstalag14 said:

I remember they got the South Korean player Ji Dong-won for free and then sold almost immediately to Augsburg for some money.

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Well Dong Won Ji was supposed to be a backup they signed for free from Augsburg. Immediately after arriving, he injured himself for 4 months and never played a game for their first team. Dortmund then offloaded him again back to Augsburg in December and made about a 2m plus.

But that was just consolation for a failed signing, they didn't really "plan" this back and forth. They couldn't have known he'd injured himself on his first day of training.

Luftstalag14 said:

Of course, we can talk about why players don't want to commit to Dortmund for long, there are numerous factors such as their relative lack of competitiveness both domestically and internationally, salary and the relatively low profile of Bundesliga etc. The same reason many other Bundesliga clubs can't hold onto their players. However Dortmund, at least compared to Leverkusen with Voeller in charge who refused to sell their best players to Bayern, does appear quite willing or at least not so opposed to doing so.

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Voeller let Vidal ran out his contract instead of selling him to Bayern. However Vidal then simply took his 2nd best option and went to Juve, instead of sitting his contract out. Dortmund essentially tried the same in the Lewandowski saga, but Lewandowski had no problem to wait and sign on a free. Both clubs did the same thing really, but Vidal and Lewandowski just chose to handle it differently.

Yannik said:

Kagawa had a contract till 2013, and was sold in 2012.
Sahins contract had a release clause, which was dated at a high price if he transfered within the league, and a lower price if a club abroad triggered it.

Dong Won Ji was supposed to be a backup they signed for free from Augsburg. Immediately after arriving, he injured himself for 4 months and never played a game for their first team. Dortmund then offloaded him again back to Augsburg in December and made about a 1.5m plus. Which was consolation, but not really anything they planned.

Voeller let Vidal ran out his contract instead of selling him to Bayern. However Vidal then simply took his 2nd best option and went to Juve, instead of sitting his contract out.
Dortmund essentially tried the same in the Lewandowski row, but Lewandowski had no problem to wait and sign on a free. Both clubs did the same thing really, but Vidal and Lewandowski just chose to handle it differently.

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Thanks, you have much more accurate info than I do. History might have painted a different picture from Dortmund's perspective, however moving forward I think they are increasingly adapted to this new role (that was forced onto them) and are growing more comfortable with it, as long as they make to the CL.

Luftstalag14 said:

Thanks, you have much more accurate info than I do. History might have painted a different picture from Dortmund's perspective, however moving forward I think they are increasingly adapted to this new role (that was forced onto them) and are growing more comfortable with it, as long as they make to the CL.

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They do adapt although I don't think they surrender to it. Take Sancho for example:

His contract ran until 2022, and it was clear that a succesfull English talent will eventually want to return. So what they did in 2019 was offering him a 1 year extension to 2023, which Sancho would normally not be expected to sign (since he is a guaranteed wantaway). However Dortmund upped his wages 3 times and gave him a verbal promise that they will still sell him given that the price is right and they will have time to look for replacements.

So then in 2020 United comes knocking,Sancho is willing, and Dortmund names a non-negotiable fuck-off price that United also has to meet in until a very early deadline. Of course United didn't manage to do that, so Dortmund turned at Sancho and said "see, we do put you up for sale, but their offer was just too low and too late." So Sancho and his agents felt disappointed but nevertheless respected their part of the agreement and didn't kick up a fuss or forced the transfer.

Dortmund is of course not stupid. They know some players are literally just looking for a stepping stone and will expect BVB to sell them at some point. Dortmund doesn't like that, but they also can't change it. But they did develope to some neat workaround techniques to get the odd extra year out of a good players stay. It's not the world, but it's far better than nothing.

Yannik said:

They do adapt although I don't think they surrender to it. Take Sancho for example:

His contract ran until 2022, and it was clear that a succesfull English talent will eventually want to return. So what they did in 2019 was offering him a 1 year extension to 2023, which Sancho would normally not be expected to sign (since he is a guaranteed wantaway). However Dortmund upped his wages 3 times and gave him a verbal promise that they will still sell him given that the price is right and they will have time to look for replacements.

So then in 2020 United comes knocking,Sancho is willing, and Dortmund names a non-negotiable fuck-off price that United also has to meet in until a very early deadline. Of course United didn't manage to do that, so Dortmund turned at Sancho and said "see, we do put you up for sale, but their offer was just too low and too late." So Sancho and his agents felt disappointed but nevertheless respected their part of the agreement and didn't kick up a fuss or forced the transfer.

Dortmund is of course not stupid. They know some players are literally just looking for a stepping stone and will expect BVB to sell them at some point. Dortmund doesn't like that, but they also can't change it. But they did develope to some neat workaround techniques to get the odd extra year out of a good players stay. It's not the world, but it's far better than nothing.

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Definitely not stupid for sure, they forced Bartomeu's hands and got him to agree to sign Dememle for more than twice as much as Bartomeu wanted to pay...