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As managerial layoffs progress, this seemed to be a classic of the genre.
Few bosses return from a 5-1 win at home to a recently promoted opponent and Lucien Favre was no exception after Borussia Dortmund were humiliated by Stuttgart on Saturday.
The Swiss was asked to clear his desk less than 24 hours later with Dortmund installing assistant coach Edin Terzic as their interim coach until the end of the season with the participation of youth coaches Sebastian Geppert and Otto Addo.
But that result, desperate as it may be, was only to scratch the surface of Favre’s troubles at the Westfalenstadion, as it all fell apart two and a half years after his appointment.
ALREADY PLAYING TO RECOVER
Basically, football is a results business and Dortmund was already lagging behind in their endless efforts to keep up with Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga.
Four defeats in their first 11 league games had brought them six points behind current Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen and five from Bayern.
Also ahead of Dortmund are RB Leipzig and Wolfsburg and with such unreliable form, it seemed increasingly unlikely that Dortmund would be Bayern’s closest rival, as they have been in the last two seasons under Favre.
Dortmund’s 3-2 home loss to Bayern in early November brought no surprise or embarrassment, but their other losses, 2-0 in Augsburg, 2-1 at home to Cologne and then 5-1 at Saturday they just weren’t good. enough.
And it’s all particularly irritating because Bayern themselves are showing weaknesses in the first weeks of the season that just haven’t been there in recent seasons, and Dortmund seemed unable to capitalize on.
However, this contrasts with their Champions League form, which saw them lead Group F ahead of Lazio despite winning just one point out of six against the Italians.
This relatively smooth progress has led to a rather favorable round of 16 draw against Sevilla, but Favre will not be around to see it. In the end, his poor domestic form was more important than his European results.
A VICTIM OF THE PROGRESS MADE?
While there were few disagreeing voices over Favre’s firing, it can be argued that this season is being measured by the progress made in the last two under the coach.
When he entered, Dortmund had just moved into the Champions League spots on goal difference after a turbulent 2017-18 season in which Peter Bosz was sacked in December and replaced by Peter Stoger.
Favre improved Dortmund during his first season to the point that he finally finished just two points behind champion Bayern, having led the table in the spring.
They also finished in second place in the 2019-20 season, albeit much more adrift, and have become Bayern’s main de facto rivals.
Meanwhile, Favre had turned Dortmund into a team of young talents by bringing in players like Jadon Sancho, Erling Haaland, Giovanni Reyna, Jude Bellingham, Reinier and Youssoufa Moukoko at his side.
Although Favre leaves Dortmund without winning any trophies, he won 68 of his 110 matches in charge and posted a 2.09 points average, which is higher than all Dortmund coaches in history.
There was a palpable sense that, at least in terms of personnel, the team had evolved to some degree in those two years. But that progress had come to a complete halt.
OPEN REVIEW FROM THE DRESSING ROOM
Perhaps feeling like the writing was on the wall for their coach, Dortmund’s senior players went to town with their criticism after Stuttgart’s defeat.
“Unfortunately, we only take risks in the space where the payoff is quite small, but the defensive consequences can be huge,” said Mats Hummels.
‘2-1, we give the ball away. 3-1, we give the ball away. 4-1, we give the ball away. ‘
Captain Marco Reus put it even more succinctly: “We are a team that cannot defend.”
Such blatant criticism from top team officials is never a good indicator of locker room harmony.
Passing the ball from behind has become fashionable for almost all high-level teams, but it only works if your players are able to do it.
As Hummels went on to explain, Dortmund had gotten into the habit of keeping the ball at the rear for too long, seemingly unable to move it forward quickly, thus inviting pressure from opponents leading to errors.
A competent coach would have instructed his players to do something else with the ball after they gave it away the first time and awarded it.
But it appears that Favre had put a tactical straitjacket on them. In the 1-1 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt a week earlier, Axel Witsel and Mahmoud Dahoud were overwhelmed in midfield, and Dortmund simply counterattack against a team they should have dominated.
NO ENTHUSIASM TO ENERGIZE A YOUNG TEAM
What Dortmund needed to bring out the best in their exciting young team was a Jurgen Klopp-style figure who could inspire and excite them while offering an arm around their shoulder when things went wrong.
But Klopp and his ‘heavy metal football’ have disappeared from the Westfalenstadion and Favre lacked the personality to propel his team in a similar way.
A calm and quiet presence on the sidelines, he was simply not the right man to bring Sancho, Haaland and company to the level where they would regularly compete for silverware at home and in the Champions League.
Favre inadvertently summed up in a recent television interview when he said, “We don’t need to underestimate ourselves, but we also need to stop overestimating ourselves.”
That is not to say that his young weapons did not shine under his leadership. Sancho scored 36 goals and contributed 45 assists in 102 games for Favre, while Haaland has scored 33 in 32 since joining the club.
Favre had the confidence to make Moukoko the youngest player in the Bundesliga at 16 years and one day late last month and the youngest to play the Champions League at 16 years and 87 days.
But two knockout outings in the Champions League, though for eventual finalists Tottenham in 2018-19 and Paris Saint-Germain last season, many were told that Favre did not possess the energy to take Dortmund to the next level.
His next full-time appointment, probably at the end of the season, will be crucial to see if this young team holds together.
Sancho was strongly linked with Manchester United during the summer window, but Dortmund held firm on its £ 108 million valuation of the England star and Ed Woodard refused to pay it.
He will undoubtedly be linked to United and European elite teams again next summer, as will Haaland, although the Norwegian forward has not been at the club as long as Sancho.
DO YOU KNOW THE NEW BOSS, LIKE THE OLD BOSS?
Dortmund’s choice for their next manager is crucial now, which perhaps explains why they plan to turn themselves in until the end of the season to do so.
It has to be someone who can not only keep their current teams together, but re-energize them and can get those little extras that matter in big games (Favre won just one of the six league games with Bayern, by example, and suffered 5-0 and 4-0 goals).
Mauricio Pochettino has been inevitably linked to work, but Marco Rose, the Borussia Monchengladbach coach, is the favorite.
Rose has created the kind of vitality in his Gladbach team that Dortmund crave and come out of a tough Champions League group containing Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk to set up a round of 16 tie with Manchester City. it was impressive.
However, they are not exactly igniting the Bundesliga, ranking eighth at the moment, but there is still a long way to go.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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