Borussia Dortmund wants to become more self-confident and louder. With a change of culture the next attack on the championship should succeed.
Hans-Joachim Watzke came up with the idea for the new black and yellow master culture at four o’clock at night. “Despite the frustration of drinking, I couldn’t sleep after the last matchday. That opened me up: In this decade of only 2018, we did not end up playing for a title in 2018,” said the Managing Director of Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday: “There is no other second force in German football than ourselves.
This insight is certainly not a new one, especially not for Watzke. But the BVB boss wants to communicate them much more offensively in the future: louder, more self-confident – and also a bit snottier. “We will accentuate the communication strategy more. We will be even more ambitious,” said Watzke at the cappuccino in the old VIP room of Signal Iduna Park. “We didn’t do that in the years after the insolvency, we didn’t need it under Jürgen Klopp.” But now is the time. Maybe I need to be a little more aggressive again.”
This should “increase the pressure on all participants”, but of course without falling into “madness”. The BVB will go into the new season with the proviso that “we will play for the German championship without any ifs or buts”. From the first day of the game. And not only then, when it can hardly be avoided any more clear mind.
But the BVB development should go beyond the mouth. “You have to make one or the other proper transfer,” Watzke stressed, and while he was speaking, the commitment of the Hoffenheim left-back Nico Schulz for 27 million euros was appropriately announced. Thorgan Hazard (Gladbach) will come, Julian Brandt (Leverkusen) will come: The BVB is preparing for the next storm in the direction of the Meisterschale. He had finished the past season with 76 points as runner-up two points behind Bayern Munich.
Watzke is worried today that the BVB had switched from its “anti-trust” tactic to the clear announcement of the champion only late in the morning, so he took the topic with him into the intensive season analysis to sports director Michael Zorc and coach Lucien Favre. “Perhaps I should have formulated it more offensively after the Leipzig victory in mid-January, but everyone should have been convinced of it,” he said.
With the new “attack plan”, BVB is playing a decision from last year into its cards. Following the example of the US football documentary “All or Nothing” or the English series “Sunderland ’til I die”, a four-part series about the 2018/19 BVB season will be launched on 9 August at the Amazon Prime streaming service. According to picture information, the club will receive around five million euros for this, but the radiance is worth far more: the series will be available in more than 200 countries. “This is going to be extraordinary,” Watzke said.
The BVB boss also had himself wired, which he forgot from time to time – it should be funny. “No matter where I went, they were already there,” Watzke reported. “Sometimes I thought I had more contact with the team than with my wife.”
