2023-24 Borussia Dortmund General Season Discussion Thread

Are we the group of death?

A resurgant Newcastle, PSG, Milan and us? That seems pretty daunting if you ask me.

 

Interesting statements by Sammer

Matthias Sammer:

"I have close ties to BVB, and anyone who doesn't have the biggest dreams and goals in sport at this club and doesn't compete to become German champion, and doesn't stand up for it publicly and admit it, won't be able to win anything big."

🗞 @SPORTBILD #BVB pic.twitter.com/kdlt8c1wJm

— BVB Newsblog (@bvbnewsblog) August 29, 2023

 

Howdy old friends (though I have no clue if anyone is still around from back when i was active).

The club Subreddit officially became too mired in collective misery for my tastes, so I'm making a glorious turn to these forums (glad to see theyre actually more active than when i stopped visiting regularly).

 

Personally I think any of the mudslinging around who is / isn't a real fan is utterly worthless given we're all on the internet taking time out of our day to discuss things - clearly, there is passion there. And 2nd, none of us can truly ascertain how much of a fan someone is since we're all anonymously posting, lol.

But you're on to something around the general war being over the club's ambitions. I think the reality is there is some % of fans that, don't exactly seem bought into much of the clubs ethos (i.e., a group of fans that would wholeheartedly accept the club even being sold outright out to Saudis if it meant they could spend money on the "hypest" transfers). They don't care about the financial realities or reasons as to why Dortmund isn't outspending the competition, they just want to celebrate hype transfers. This absolutely doesn't apply to all or even most of this group, but I think these voices stand out among all of the noise.

For example, I had someone on the Reddit yesterday arguing with me about fullback depth, and in their assessment, they seemed entirely unaware that Bensebaini was in the team (they claimed Wolf was our starting LB and thus not a viable option to be considered as depth for either RB or LB, lol). They also were under the impression Meunier was a midfielder that Terzic was desperately trying to convert to fullback to cover this lack of depth, though they did eventually acknowledge that he is in fact a RB and always has been (regardless of his injury issues). These sorts of voices are not the majority, but they can be loud and I think this minority of voices is largely responsible for the "fake fan" claims that get thrown at this larger block of fans.

Then there's another block of fans that are the more BVB traditionalists / loyalists. At times, this group is probably overly invested in explaining away even the bad decisions management has made as necessities, and they can be pretty hard on the other side with throwing around accusations of fake fandom, etc.

I would say there's always been some element of this playing out among the fandom over the past decade or so, but the conclusion to last BuLi season seems to have brought this dichotomy to the forefront which has lead to things getting pretty testy.

 

Where is the clubs subreddit forum? Link anyone?

 

reddit.com/r/borussiadortmund

 

very cool, thanks bumble!

 

It cant be a group of death if we are in it lol

I hope we'll at least win a game... my hopes for CL is rock bottom this season...

 

This team is not even good enough to compete for the EL title.

 

Not much to be happy about recently (results have been okayish though despite poor football) so it's good to hear that at least Kobel extended till 2028. Would be nice to not lose every important player after 2-3 years.

 

He's currently our best and most important player. Easy to forget about him because his goalkeeper position.

 

I am glad to see Bellingham smashing in La Liga, but two things stand out.
1. How were we so incompetent to sell him for so cheap
2. Once again it reinforces just how clueless we are. I said it and many of us realised that Bellingham was an attacking midfielder. He wasn't an 8 and he certainly wasn't a 6. Yet time and time again we played him at 8 ot 6, which left huge gaps in out midfield and meant we couldn't build up play well.

Now Madrid a well run team always have at the very least Modric/Camavinga and sometimes even Kroos playing deeper than Bellingham. The whole of German football has lost respect for the value of the likes of Camvinga and Modric. Reus is still a very good 10 and Brandt can play there or as a wing forward but still we don't have a 6 or 8 worthy.

Bissouma was an idiot on Saturday but he is an example of a perfect 6 for us. It infuriates me that we could have spent 30 million and had a Bissoum/Dahoud partnership

 

Quite true. We don't have a proper 6 or an 8. Neither of Can, Ozcan and Nmecha are good enough. Sabitzer could be some kind of rotation option for both, but a rotation option at best. We had a good player in Dahoud, but our genius management let him go on a free and he is so far doing quite well with Brighton. Bissouma had an awful first season, but Postecoglou seems to have figured out how to extract the best of him. But we are all about physical players now, i.e. 10 headless chicken running around without much of an end product. Granted, you need players with a good engine, but ours seem to have only that.

 

New CEO, doesn't want to compete with with ReaL Madrid... wants to compete with Netflix.
Woho... well, pretty much tells me everything about the sporting ambition of this club over the next 10 years. Sad sad days.
https://www.managingmadrid.com/2023...-ceo-our-rival-is-not-real-madrid-its-netflix

If they have a new CEO, what is the Weaselkuk still doing at the club? Confusing.
Well, I suppose it can't get any worse given what the last 10 years have been like. Fingers crossed.

 

I think it's a good practice to read the article one links and not just the headline.

The quote was in regards to economic considerations and the competing leisure interests of the consumer base. It literally had nothing to do with sporting ambitions in comparison to other teams.

 

Well that's the point that I'm trying to make hava...

The club are so infatuated with their bottom line and the economics of a club that they fail to realise that the whole point of having a club, IS TO PLAY FOOTBALL!

It's why they haggled Lewandowski with a 1 million pay raise, because they were thinking economically, rather than in footballing terms. I say, take care of the club on the field by building a team that will bring success, and then the economics take care of themselves. Not the other way around!

 

Exactly. They also fail to realise that Dortmund are STILL regarded far higher in Europe than in Germany. Yes at the moment they are viewed as a laughing stock, but that's due to Bayern dominating the league and constantly selling players.

A change in mentality and what the owners don't realise is that Dortmund is viewed rightly or wrongly in the 2nd tier of clubs in Europe.

Yes we are not there with the Madrid's, Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester United, City, Chelsea and PSG. That mostly being down to money.

But we are right there with the likes of Inter, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid's.

With ambition we can break into the top echelon.

 

In addition to the devastating cup loss, Moukoko and Ryerson (possibly up to 2 months out) won't be available for the remainder of the year. Sabitzer and Wolf are questionable for the Leipzig game as well. So I'm expecting further humiliations in the following two games.

Brunner might get a chance to play for the first team which is something to look forward to at least.

 

PSV is our CL opponent. They won every game in their league so far and this combination of form and the confidence can be dangerous.

 

wow.. I didn't realize that they were perfect in the league. that's impressive. I'm not sure if I still like the draw in that case haha.. But we SHOULD have more quality than they do.