Can’t wait for the season to begin

Hey, quite a lot has happened at Dortmund since my last English update. We finished last season in 13th place, the worst position in 20 years, but, on the other hand, made it to the cup final, where we lost somewhat unluckily to Bayern Munich, 2-1 after extra time. Now, most fans will always see the league as the most important competition, and so did the club executives. Manager Thomas Doll was fired only days after the last game against Wolfsburg (a 4-2 home defeat to our former favourite opponents). In my opinion, it was the correct, the logical decision: Doll tried a lot, but never found a way to bring consistency to the team.

Nearly all BVB fans were electrified when they heard who was to become Doll’s successor: Juergen Klopp was finally ready to leave 2nd division side Mainz 05 after seven years in charge. Klopp had made a name for himself with his friendly and optimistic attitude, his temporarily very successful work at a small club and his quick-witted performances as a TV pundit. Moreover, he is also known as an advocate of attacking football, who nevertheless acknowledges the need for a quality defence.

And this is the area where the club has (up to now) invested most of its transfer budget. Young centre-back Neven Subotic (19) has followed Klopp from Mainz to Dortmund for around 4,000,000 €. He is regarded as a hot prospect in Germany; last season, he was arguably the best centre-back in the 2nd division. From Figueirense in Brazil, Felipe Santana, another young (22-yr-old) centre-back, has been brought in, who obviously still has to adapt to German football and life, but should be all right in the end – he was extensively scouted by BVB representatives. A well-known name and former Germany player is Patrick Owomoyela who has joined us from last season’s vice-champions Werder Bremen for a bit over two million €. The right-back has had recurring injury problems though, and his first goal will be to stay fit for some time.

In midfield, we might have finally found a successor for Tomas Rosicky in 27-year-old Hungarian Tamas Hajnal who came from Karlsruher SC for a fixed transfer fee of 1.3 million €. Tamas showed very promising signs in the recent 2-1 win over Bayern Munich, a game that was unofficially labelled “Super Cup” by the two clubs. And in this game, the fans also got a taste of the sort of football usually associated with Juergen Klopp: pacey and with a lot of pressing, just nice to watch. I would love to see performances like that next season. But before that, we have two more weeks of pre-season, packed with rather interesting matches against Juventus, Feyenoord Rotterdam and Spurs.

The season starts with the 1st cup round at 4th division side RW Essen on 9 August – should be an interesting one as they are quite close neighbours…