The Borussia Dortmund Cycle
- Turk Balci
- Mar 21, 2024
- 2 min read
By: Turk Balci, Writer Abroad
For the past two decades or so, Borussia Dortmund has been going in what feels like an endless loop. Buy an unheard of youngster, build him into a first team player, lose the league to Bayern Munich, sell a blooming Wonderkid, and restart.
The cycle began when Hans-Joachim Watzke, the current owner of Borussia Dortmund, was made CEO in 2005. Borussia Dortmund fans are convinced that the reason Watzke sells so many players is so that he can keep most of the money for himself and use a portion of the money to buy another youngster to get even more money off of. Since Watzke was appointed as the CEO, Borussia Dortmund has been the academy for all the big teams in Europe.
They buy a young player, train him to be a first team player, and then send him off to Real Madrid or Manchester City or FC Barcelona. One of the most recent examples of this is when, last summer, Jude Bellingham was sold to Real Madrid. Over the past decade, Borussia Dortmund has created some of the best players of their respective generations. Just to name a few, Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham, Ousman Dembele, Ilkay Gundogan, and Robert Lewansowski, and that is just the tip of the hat. There are also current players that Borussia Dortmund has made who are likely to be sold as soon as next summer. The main players in that category are Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Karim Adeyemi, Donyell Malen, Youssoufa Moukoko, Giovani Reyna, and Nico Schlotterbeck.
The third part of the cycle is losing the title to Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. The last time that Borussia Dortmund won the Bundesliga was in the 2011-12 season. Ever since then, Bayern Munich has won every season, except for this season. Bayer Leverkusen are currently, as of recording, 10 points ahead of Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga.
Borussia Dortmund fans are hoping the cycle will break soon as Watzke is leaving the club in 2025, and that Bayer Leverkusen ending Bayern Munich’s dominance, which will allow them to win the league themselves in the near future.
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