"It is a true team built from a club’s youth system with a young manager, rather than assembled hastily with the riches of one shady boardroom figure. Their rebirth has come about from financial caution, and sensible, long term planning, both on and off the field. It is difficult to imagine a similar story unfolding in the free for all world of the Premier League. There, debt is covered up with more debt."
There are certain teams that pass you by as a football fan, certain teams you admire for a game or two, when it’s their time in the limelight on a bitter January night, mid-week, for an F.A Cup replay. There are certain teams you talk about, whether that is a reason to loathe them or respect them. Certain teams you pay no attention to at all, because there is nothing different about them, nothing about them that goes against the grain of modern football.
A team who do not fall into the above paragraphs category is current Bundesliga champions, Borussia Dortmund. So impressed have I been with this club in recent times that I spent 2 and a half hours watching YouTube clips of just their fans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K-KNLfhsCs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZnUlEJFPjs
Dortmund’s rise to the top hasn’t been pretty, it’s only recently that they have found stability, gained respect from Europe’s elite and balanced their books so well their piggy bank cracks open a healthy profit. They are a force to be reckoned with, and a business model to be studied and adhered to.
They began life 1909 and have since gone on to win 8 German championships, three German cups and one Champions league title. Their first league title came in 1956 and then 10 years later in 1966 they became the first German club to win a European title, winning the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup against Bill Shankly’s Liverpool at Hampden Park.
The 1970’s will be remembered as a time of financial difficulty for the club which also saw there relegation in 1972, the opening of their stadium the Westfalenstadion in 1974 and then a return to the Bundesliga in 1976. A golden period in the 1990’s followed with 2 league titles in 1995 and 1996 respectively before their 1997 Champions League final win against Juventus which saw none other than Aston Villa’s present manager Paul Lambert take an assist as well as keeping the irrepressible Zinedine Zidane quiet during a memorable 3-1 victory.
Last year Dortmund won the Bundesliga for the second time in two years, asserting their dominance in German football once more. They also asserted themselves in the record books too. They broke the point’s record in the Bundesliga by gaining 81 points in 34 league matches as well as going 28 games consecutively without losing, another record. Furthermore they have the youngest squad in the Bundesliga, a young squad that also boasts the fairest playing team in the league, and, just to add to that jar of ever growing jealousy many fans must be getting, their average attendance stands at 80 521, the highest in Germany and Europe.
Dortmund’s financial side has also improved vastly since near collapse in 2005. Their revenue has almost doubled in the last two years from £103million in 2010 to £199million in 2012. This is due to the increase in the TV pool for German teams and Dortmund have saw their revenue increase threefold from 21million Euro’s to 60 million in the last 2 years.
If we look further into their finances, in particularly their Champions League earnings for this season, Dortmund are set to earn a minimum of 41.8 Euros thanks to getting to the last 16 as well as topping their group. If they were to go on to the final and win, their potential earnings can rocket to around 80 million euros (including ticketing for home matches). This shows around an 50million Euro increase from last season when they exited at the group stage. Enough of the stats because Dortmund, basically, are in dreamland.
This further highlights the Bundesliga’s increased reputation and growing revenue. Tim Rich of The Independent said of the Bundesliga in general that it ‘enjoys the largest football economy in the world. They carry less debt, produce more profit, their stadiums are fuller and their ticket prices lower than any other major league’ (an average of £15 compared to £41 for the Premier League).
Dortmund’s morals seem also to have followed their growing success, when asked if City’s owner Sheikh Mansour, ever wanted to invest in Dortmund, the clubs managing director Hans Joachim Watzke, said he would refuse to meet him and remarked, “We want to keep our soul”. An admirable answer in front of Dortmund’s ever growing media spotlight.
The idea that another club, another set of fans, another teams way of play on the football pitch is better than the team I follow used to be absurd to me. As football fans we are often fickle and narrow minded towards our opinions. At times we waver from what is true and what is real. Growing up Liverpool was this perfect ideal, this perfect institution that everybody should bow down to, should appreciate. Reality kicks in, as does adulthood, and along with adulthood, for most anyway, comes level headedness.
Without meaning to stir some petty fan banter, I’ve been lucky enough to experience some of the best atmospheres in any stadium in Europe as a Liverpool fan. Teams often have devout fans whose inner circle of support is one to be admired and Liverpool’s falls into that category. But I can honestly say that this club and these fans are the best I’ve ever seen. To get a mix of such passionate fans coupled with one of the best teams in Europe in the most up and coming league on this planet is a rarity, and something I’ve felt compelled to write about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwcWccVrXZw
The last 16 comes next for Dortmund, something they have been rather unfamiliar of in recent times. Since their victory over Juventus for European glory in 1997 they have fell short of the high expectations a competition like the Champions League demands. With their league fortunes stuttering somewhat this season, a run in the knock out stages could well stamp their authority on Europe further.
Every team, every league and every country has their own culture, their own way of doings things when it comes to the life sentence of supporting your team. But this growing institution, this global brand whose motto “Echte Liebe” (True Love) is a statement as proud as any mother is with their children, whose 80 000+ capacity Signal Iduna stadium is so overwhelming the shivers down your spine would turn to full on cold sweats and whose fans are so passionate that I challenge anyone to rival them when it comes to stadium, fans and success. This holy trinity, is truly the definition of “Echte Liebe”.
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