This summer Klopp finished his sixth season incharge of Borussia Dortmund and while he has a contract till 2018 there are lingering doubts that he has taken the Ruhr based club as far as he possibly can.
Borussia Dortmund are the second club for many people around the world and the reasons for this are aplenty, right from the the electric atmosphere generated at their Westfalenstadion to their energetic & fast paced football. There is also generally a lot of positivity surrounding the club both on and off the pitch and while it may be harsh to attribute all of this to the workings of a single man, in Dortmundai??i??s case it probably is.
When BVB enlisted the services of Klopp they were perhaps enduring one of their most difficult periods, footballing wise, as they constantly suffered from the threat of relegation. So it was quite surprising that Klopp was appointed given that he had little managerial pedigree apart from managing FSV Mainz 05 for seven eventful years.
But Klopp & Dortmund were a marriage made in heaven as the club knew they needed someone who would be willing to work on a limited financial budget so as not to repeat the near bankruptcy of 2005. Klopp enthusiastically brought in this new way of working and helped build the modern foundations of the club. He insisted on youth development, enhanced the scouting network and introduced state off the art technology such as the Footbonaut.
What followed was a period which every Dortmund fan could only dream of as the club won two successive Bundesliga titles in 2010-11 & 2011-12, the DFB Pokal in 2012 and reached the finals of the Champions League in 2013. During this time the Westfalenstadion regained its prominence in the Ruhr region and continually set the records for the highest average season attendances not only in Germany but all of Europe.
But in Germany there is a superpower that can never be tamed, that always rises and strikes back, and after seeing their traditional grip on the Bundesliga slip away, Bayern Munich woke up. First they prised away Mario Gotze, a player who had risen to international prominence from the Dortmund academy and this summer they lured Robert Lewandowski on a free transfer. On the football field too Bayern have pulled ahead as they won the treble in 2012-13 & won the domestic double last year.
And while it is admirable that Klopp is fighting the Bavarian giants, he must understand that this is one battle he simply cannot win. Already, there has been a huge uproar this pre season about Marco Reus following his aforementioned former team mates to Munich despite the player always insisting to the contrary.
Klopp knows that he cannot compete financially with the major European powerhouses and the best that can be done is to make any deal the most profitable for Dortmund and then start once again from scratch. He did that last season to an extent with the signings of Henrikh Mkhitaryan & Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and a similar theme has continued this summer with the arrivals of Ciro Immobile, Dong-Won Ji & Adrian Ramos amongst others.
These are all fine players but the thing with bringing in so many fresh faces every season is that they have to be taught how to play in the ai???Klopp wayai??i?? with its special emphasis on movement, ball control & spatial awareness of the field and team mates. So season after season as Bayern Munich and the rest of Europeai??i??s super clubs begin from a position of strength, Borussia Dortmund & Jurgen Klopp are left to integrate new players into a system which takes a considerable amount of time to adapt to.
Despite having a contract at BVB which will run till the summer of 2018 it is hard not to wonder what it is which is keeping Klopp with the Ruhr based club. If he had chosen to leave last season perhaps the job at Real Madrid, PSG or Chelsea could have been his. This summer there were vacancies at Manchester United & Barcelona. These are all top clubs who do not generally face the kind of rebuilding required at Dortmund every season and who would have jumped at the chance of signing this former Mainz star.
In this day and age when club crests are kissed one second and a transfer request handed at the next, it is strange to see Klopp not doing the same. Perhaps a sense of loyalty & a profound desire to honour his contract and his word is holding him back.
But Klopp must realize that he has a genius which deserves a far greater stage, a stage where he has the authority to select his cast and order them to play to his tune, a stage which is grander than all others and sadly one which is not Borussia Dortmund.
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