Curiously, Lewandowski was actually on his way to Blackburn Rovers in 2008 when Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted and his flight was cancelled. He then came to us (so the story goes). Now that's serendipity!
As cris said, you are forgettig about the trophies part which i think matters more to him than money itself. With Gotze leaving he knew we wouldn't challenge bayern. Juventus gets trophies, they may be financially like us but they have a richer history and are top of their country, undisputed. They don't let their best players leave for free but that's not necessarily managements fault but the lewandowski's. Arsenal doesn't sell for free but they sell to their rivals manchester city and united. Milan actually gets players for free, or at least used to in the recent years. Does anyone know if they got an economic boost? they landed bacca and luiz adriano. We are not, financially, on the same ground as liverpool, are we?
Of course trophies are important but players also go to PSG and City to win trophies too right? Other than Falcao, I can't think of any player who doesn't consider trophies when making career decision. So for me this is a moot point. What exactly are you trying to say? We are on similar financial footing as the clubs I mentioned. These clubs don't let their players go away for free, certainly not their top players regardless of what their players' career goals are. Cris is saying these types of negotiations happen all the time with absolutely no evidence so I am calling him out.
Gerrard, Totti, Reus? Those are three good players that have reamined with their clubs despite the odds of winning trophies being very slim. PSG has become a club that can challenge for the champions league, but it still lacks that mystisism and history of the clubs you previously mentioned. I bet some of the young players there want to move to the bigger teams despite already earning a lot. I tried to say, even if we are financially on the same terms (which i don't think we are in the case of liverpool or Arsenal if you consider the salary of their players) we don't necessarily have the same appeal when getting players or extending their contracts. Players can force their transfers, I believe that's what happened with Modric & Bale (even if they left money for tottenham) and Khedira in RM case who left for free when he could've being sold for some money the year before. However, you can't sell a player if he doesn't want to leave, right? Isn't that what happened with lewandowski? He wanted to go only to bayern despite us trying to sell him to other teams (chelsea, rm) so he stayed in the team for another season to leave for free for his "beloved" bayern... I hope this thing with Gundo doesn't turn out the same and we get some money.
Truth or not.... I'm so sick of Watzke constantly try to curb expectations with comments like this. "The only club in Germany who can hunt down Bayern now are Wolfsburg," he told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "When we won the title, our players got on an open-top lorry to celebrate in front of our fans -- Wolfsburg's players all got in convertible Lamborghinis. I think that is the best way to illustrate the different positions the two clubs are in."
I actually don't mind those comments since we are going to have a tough season with a new coach and new players so better to have low than high expectations, right? I mean, if last season wasn't just a fluke then we have strong competitors for the second spot, and even if we do manage to win the buli it is true that bayern are still far ahead financially and sportively. It might be hard to swallow but we need to keep performing for at least 5 years (If not more) to realistaclly challenge them for the top spot in germany, to be their equals.
You have to separate the sport from the business. Chelsea will take years to catch United off the pitch (if ever) but on the pitch we all know who is likely to win as long as Jose Mourinho is wearing blue. The same applies to Madrid and Barcelona. Barçelona simply cannot catch Madrid's revenue making ability whereas Barça is untouchable on the pitch by any club in the world. In BuLi I think we can catch Bayern. We have a smart coach. What we need is a genuinely talented football director who can identity who we need and bring them in. Not some idiot who got the job because of his former association with the club. Frankly I don't have a problem with Watzke staying. But he needs to drop his balls and make the tough decisions. And it starts by firing Zorc. I can't stand incompetence and Zorc demonstrates that on a regular basis.
I think chelsea's case is very particular since they have a sugar daddy in abramovich so they really don't need to catch other teams in the business area since they have the financial part already fixed. For clubs like us who don't have a rich owner we have to make revenue from the business area that's why it's so hard, we have to take the long way. I honestly don't agree with no one touching barcelona, Bayern and Madrid have done it in recent years. Although it's true that they had a fantastic last season, I see clubs being able to challenge them, their problem has actually been failing to get the right transfers. For me Barcelona as at the top, currently, because they have 3 monsters upfront in Suarez, Neymar and Messi. Sadly, the other footbal clubs with money (chelsea, united, bayern, madrid, psg) allowed this to happen and now we could truly be facing a balugrana dominance. While they're getting really good players like arda turan or vidal from valencia to further improve their team, the other clubs are just making small improvements. I don't think this season's bayern or madrid are going to be much stronger than last seasons, unless they get a really good player (KDB, Vidal (juventus), etc).
I don't think Zorc is that bad. This is the same guy who was getting plaudits from all over the world for assembling that 12-13 CL team for under 30mil, 15mil for everyone if you take out Reus. And apparently Morata was a whisker away from joining us over Juventus to replace Lewy, and we all know how the KDB deal was all done until that cuntz Mourinho blocked that transfer after Lewy rejected him. If we had Morata and KDB instead of Immobile and Miki, who knows what could have happened last year. But we barely missed out on our first choices and Zorc's second choices have so far flopped. But I also think a lot of the flop blame falls on Klopp's shoulders as well. He is the one who appernlty watched 80 macthes of Ciro's on tape and wanted him so bad. I have a feeling Klopp was also behind the Schieber transfer too. As much as Zorc has ********ed up recently, he's also had a lot of successes too, Kagawa, Lewy, Gundogan, Piszczek, Bender, Reus, PEA, and Sokratis. And like I said he just barely missed out on KDB and Morata and who knows how many others we just missed since so far only KDB and Morata have opened up to the press about almost joining us, (oh and Eriksen too but that was completely Zorc and the board's fault for passing on him). I think we should give Zorc this and next summer to see how he does with a new coach in TT and his transfer targets. I have a better feeling with the meticulous TT and his targets over Klopp who's demands were probably "I want fast players who can press for 80 mins, technical or passing ability is a just a bonus." However Watzke is definately holding us back. The man has no balls and is a huge miser. That miserness helped us immensly when the club was on the brink of bankruptcy but its been holding us back ever since our 11-12 season. If Watzke was a coach, he would be a park the bus play 10 players on defense aim for 1 point, don't risk going for the win kind of coach. I'm sick and tired of his underdog mentalitly and frugal transfers policy. He already seems to have mentally given up on being the second best team and handed Wolfsburg that title after they have one good season and we have or first bad season in 8 years. Watzke is the one who is mostly likely tying Zorc's hands behind his back with tight transfer budgets, none more tighter than this season. He's the one who took out that CL insurance policy like he was expecting us 100% to fail within 3 years instead of investing that 30 million in some world class player the last 3 transfer windows. Watzke was the one who sat on his ass the whole of last season not putting any pressure on Klopp to improve results and ultimately having Klopp offer to step down himself after seeing it wasn't working anymore rather than having to wield the axe himself. I don't think he would have even have had the balls to sack Klopp if we were relegated in 18th place. Watzke is a coward who instead of trying 200% to outfox Bayern and their board, just bitches to the media "they're too far ahead financially, why bother, and for that matter now Wolfburg are too far ahead of us too, woe is us."
In all honesty.... it's hard to argue with your post. Well said. I still believe Zorc should ultimately be held responsible for the recent transfer flops, although I agree that these were likely driven substantially by Klopp's influence. It's easy for me to say this in hindsight, but it's Zorc's job to stand up and say yes or no in tough situations. I am still frustrated/stumped by the loan of Ciro though. I can see loaning out young and promising players that we don't have minutes for (ie: potentially Weigl), but I don't see Ciro that way. He's likely burned a lot of bridges here, and even if he performs well and gets us an extra 3-4M in fees...... it's not worth the risk or time. I would much rather have taken our loss and moved on to new chapter with a player that fits TT's style.
Spot on. For me Klopp´s best attribute was his motivation to our players. Once that stopped working or downfall began. Still, would love to see the guy coaching a big team and will surely watch his next team matches (unless its barcelona or bayern).
Well said! A quick look at our transfer activity in last 3 seasons - Zorc was instrumental in getting us Aubameyang who was about to join Newcastle. Even Sokratis was on his way to Leverkusen, but we snatched him at the last hour. It was quite a controversial transfer - but all that matters is that we got a fantastic defender under 10m. De Bruyne was identified as a Gotze replacement, but Mourinho did a Mourinho and screwed us. It was even said that he had agreed upon the personal terms with us. Sahin for around 7m is not a bad deal at all Adrian Ramos is a good player and Klopp is the one who should be blamed for not utilizing him well. I sincerely hope that Tuchel brings the best out of him. Kagawa for around 7-8m is not a bad deal either Getting Castro is a brilliant move IMO - we get an experienced player who is flexible to play all midfield roles and a leader to replace Kehl. Getting Roman Burki for 4m is a steal and once again, the credit should be given to Zorc for this. Barring the following transfer goofups which cost us a fortune, I think Watzke and Zorc have done a pretty good job. Miki - not 1-to-1 replacement for Gotze, but an above average player who I still believe in (I know I sound stupid when I say this) Ciro - was never convinced about his quality Dong-Won Ji - lets not even talk about it Ginter - overhyped player IMO, never liked him as a CB at Freiburg either. But then, he hasn't failed either. Jojic - not of BVB quality, but this deal can be ignored as we hardly spent 2-3m on him Kampl - a panic buy, not worth 12-15m that we paid We need to understand that Watzke, Zorc, Klopp trio was not prepared for the success that we had between 2010-13 and tried to cope up with the exponentially rising expectations from the fans. Just like any other football club mgmt team, they had their share of mistakes and we should accept that.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you made my night I couldn't see the last games, did he missed clear cut chances as usually?
This rather laconically sums up last season for BVB. I clearly remember whatever hopes left for the season getting dashed seeing this live.
^^ I remember this....did it go in the net? That would have been epic. TBH no matter the team, this is a funny clip.
http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/fourfourtwos-50-best-football-managers-world-2015-no6 I look forward to the day of his return!