Change of coach at BVB: Edin Terzic is the favorite – Sport

Until Friday noon, the storm warnings for the Ruhr area only mentioned heavy rain and thunderstorms. But then, just in time for the lunch break, Borussia Dortmund burst out with the announcement that the collaboration with coach Marco Rose would be ended immediately. The club has not yet named a successor to Rose. However, it can be assumed that Rose’s predecessor, Edin Terzic, has the best chance of becoming his successor.

For those in the know, the separation doesn’t really come as a surprise, even if the BVB management around managing director Hans-Joachim Watzke, sporting director Michael Zorc and his designated successor Sebastian Kehl had never indicated anything like that in public. In fact, the decision to separate that has now been announced should only have matured in a joint season analysis on Thursday afternoon. In addition to Rose, Watzke, Zorc and Kehl, external BVB consultant Matthias Sammer is said to have attended the meeting.

The grumbling among those responsible for Dortmund has been heard louder and louder in the past few weeks and months. BVB had scored a very good point average in the Bundesliga season that just ended and finished second behind FC Bayern – but at the same time there was a lack of playful football progress. There was no clear plan, neither in the offensive game for Erling Haaland and Marco Reus nor in the sometimes desolate defensive behavior and 73 goals conceded across all competitions.

Rose should have felt the doubts about his person in the past few weeks

The sticking point in Rose’s assessment was the failure of the expensive and top-class team in the cup competitions. In the Champions League, BVB was knocked out in the group stage after heavy defeats against Ajax Amsterdam and Sporting Lisbon; in the Europa League, as a consolation round, was the end of the line in the first game against Glasgow Rangers. In the DFB Cup, the team under coach Rose was eliminated in the round of 16 at second division club FC St. Pauli. There was also a whole series of narrow victories in the league, and in the last few weeks three home defeats against Bayer Leverkusen (2: 5), RB Leipzig (1: 4) and VfL Bochum (3: 4).

Open detailed view

The fact that Rose’s job was not terminated immediately after all this is said to have been due to two non-sporting reasons: On the one hand, Rose is an extremely pleasant, likeable guy to work with – which they appreciate more in Dortmund than in some other places. On the other hand, BVB boss Watzke Rose only left Borussia Mönchengladbach last spring with great difficulty and with a lot of noise for an alleged transfer fee of five million euros. And after Jürgen Klopp’s resignation in 2015, the club was no longer able to establish real continuity in the coaching position.

Rose is said to have requested a kind of Nibelungen oath towards the end of the Thursday session. Apparently there wasn’t, and so the momentum of the final session of the season turned towards a breakup after all. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that those responsible for BVB, especially Watzke and Zorc, were more relieved than surprised by the final line. And Rose should also have felt the doubts about his person. Throughout the season he was attested that he was great at analyzing what his players were doing wrong; his address to the professionals was also praised. Apparently, Rose didn’t get through with it in very many games. In the end, the squad was too far away from their self-declared goal for the season of making BVB a “pressing machine” again.

Rose’s predecessor Edin Terzic, who stepped in as interim coach after Lucien Favre was kicked out last season, is clearly the first point of contact. Terzic was very successful and, among other things, won the DFB Cup in 2021; he is currently “Technical Manager”. However, Terzic has a similarly intensive bond with Borussia as Christian Streich has with SC Freiburg. So whether Terzic wants to take the risk of sitting in the head coach’s ejection seat again is not entirely clear to him.

As an interim coach, it was easy to move back into the second rank at his heart club BVB. As a real boss and Rose’s successor, something like that would be more difficult. In Freiburg it is probably a little easier to love a club like that.