Are Borussia Dortmund back and has this come at the perfect time?

Borussia Dortmund currently sit 8th in the Bundesliga. They have had an embarrassingly bad season by all accounts and I’m sure the fans of the black and yellow will want to do nothing but put the 2024/25 campaign behind them as soon as possible. Nuri Sahin started the season as head coach but quickly proved he was not up to the task and it was too much too quickly for the former Dortmund player. 

The side were making calamitous defensive error after calamitous defensive error whilst also being relatively toothless upfront and even when Sahin was sacked and replaced by Niko Kovac, Dortmund barely improved. Mistakes were still being made and Dortmund were still sliding down the table.

But now, there has been a radical change in system which has seen Dortmund pick up 2 emphatic wins on the bounce against 2 sides ahead of them in the impressive Mainz and Freiburg. Kovac has changed to a fluid 3-4-1-2 formation which has seen his team very difficult to contend with, creating an average of over 3xG across these two matches. Youngsters such as Maximilian Beier, Karim Adeyemi and Chelsea loanee Carney Chukwuemnka have hugely impressed whilst Gittens and Guirassy are showing glimpses of getting back to their lighting form from earlier in the season.

Maybe I’ve jumped the gun way too early, after all I’m writing this after only two impressive displays. But, there are very positive signs and Dortmund’s next few games will prove whether or not there is any real meat in this. A run of games of seismic importance will see Borussia Dortmund play Bayern and Borussia Mӧnchengladbach and Barcelona twice across their next four games. It really is sink or swim for them and with only 5 points off the Champions League spots with 8 games to play, there is still a chance we see them in Europe’s biggest competition next year.

After these 4 games, it is likely we will know the fate of Dortmund’s season and if Kovac will still be manager next season - the stakes are VERY high but luckily for BVB they are looking like they have caught fire at the perfect time. 

If they truly have turned a corner, which I suspect to be the case - don’t expect UCL favourites Barcelona to run them over when they face each other on Wednesday.

There is something potentially very fun beginning to Brew in Dortmund…