Dortmund renaissance
January 23, 2010
A graph of the Ruhr giants' Bundesliga exploits over the past few decades reads like a heart monitor; a series of continuing highs and lows. Two seasons ago BVB (as the club is often called, from Ballspiel-Verein Borussia) had nearly gone into arrest, experiencing one of its lowest ebbs for over 20 years. A gradual decline from the 2002 title-winning season had seen the team slip down the standings each year, finishing the 2007-08 season in lowly 13th place.
After rallying to a sixth-placed finish last season, Dortmund's present perch in fifth as the second half of this season gets underway gives the faithful hope that stability and success could be on the horizon. That, in itself, is a reason to be cheerful.
Dortmund's history is an uneven one, but that doesn't stop the club from being one of the best-supported in Germany. Dortmund are a massive club – not just because of their respectable trophy haul, but from their fanatical support, their ability to attract over 50,000 season ticket holders every year, and the ease with which they fill the 80,552-capacity Signal Iduna Park at the drop of a yellow-and-black striped hat.
This level of support and loyalty is built on the history of a working-class community which profited together in the halcyon days of industrial production, but also struggled and strived together in its decline.
Hard work and commitment on a par with glory
As a result, Dortmund fans don't take anything for granted. They know good times come and go and that you put in what you get out. Their six German championships in their 100-year history are seen as just rewards for the hard work of those seasons, not a birthright.
This is why BVB fans don't expect to win the league every year, but do expect their team to at least try. If the players try their hardest and fail, then at least they can stand on the pitch and look the Yellow Wall of 24,500 faithful on the Südtribüne terrace squarely in the eye with pride, without flinching.
That pride appears to be back in spades – on the pitch and in the stands. The commitment and consistency the team has shown in the first half of the current season is their best run in more than seven years – Dortmund are on an 11-game unbeaten streak, comprising eight wins and three draws.
Stars playing for the team and the cause
At the moment, the team's form is being driven by players who refuse to go missing when things get tough; a problem that some Dortmund teams of the past have experienced with their flair players. More often than not, when BVB brought in a creative star in the past he turned out to be more show pony than workhorse.
Nuri Sahin is showing that his early promise was no flash in the pan by becoming a two-way midfield stalwart of the current team. Mats Hummels is developing into an exciting attacking talent - from central defense. Nelson Valdez is enjoying a busy season as a support forward, dispelling myths that he's too lightweight and has a tendency to disappear from matches. Meanwhile, Lucas Barrios and Mohamed Zidan have given Dortmund its most exciting attacking one-two punch since the days of Jan Koller and Tomas Rosicky.
These and other threads have been pulled together by coach Juergen Klopp, another member of the Dortmund team who deserves credit for the present renaissance.
Klopp: BVB's Jekyll and Hyde coach
It might seem strange that a man like Klopp has managed to harness the traditional working man's values of the club – and the communitarian ethic which runs through the city itself – to give the fans a team to be proud of. Somehow though, it works.
At first glance, Klopp is all wrong for Dortmund. With his trendy glasses and stubble beard, the Stuttgart-born coach has a slightly professorial air about him and lacks the plainspoken earthiness attributed to those from Germany's former industrial heartland. In his role as a TV soccer pundit, he showed a well-spoken and analytic side to his personality, combined with a genial nature and a penchant for sharp suits. Hardly a typical Dortmund football man.
And yet, Klopp embodies much of what BVB fans demand from their team and coach. On match days, he has boundless energy, unbridled passion and huge belief in his team and himself. However, his self-control leaves much to be desired – a personality trait that both endears him to the BVB faithful and irks them in equal measure (how can the coach get the best out of team when he's banished to the stands?).
He is, on the other hand, the first manager to deliver silverware, however paltry – the DFB Supercup in 2008 – to the club in almost eight years. Klopp's outbursts, in the hope he can bring further glory, are mostly tolerated.
Return of attacking flair excites traditionalists
Apart from the commitment Klopp demands, the longtime Mainz player and coach has brought back one of Dortmund's most traditional playing attributes – the cavalier attack. BVB fans have always been happiest when their team has been overtly offensive, even allowing them their defensive frailties if they fostered exciting attacking displays.
Klopp has resurrected this approach. Last season, his first in the Dortmund hot seat, BVB scored 60 goals and had a goal difference of plus 23. So far this season, his charges have hit 26 with a goal difference of plus seven. Just as with some of his Mainz teams of the past, Klopp appears to have adopted the mentality that "it's alright to concede goals, as long we score more." It's a recipe for exciting but unpredictable soccer – a staple of any good Dortmunder's football diet.
However, until last week's 3-2 win at Cologne, Dortmund had not conceded more than one goal in any of their previous 12 matches, a statistic that Klopp has also begun to understand that having too porous a defense will eventually undo all the good offensive work.
The current BVB side's devil-may-care approach is unlikely to bring the league title to Dortmund this season, but Dortmund fans now have what they've always demanded from their club – a team that plays with passion and tries its best. Anything else is a bonus.
Author: Nick Amies
Editor: Matt Hermann