Tag: Borussia Dortmund

Dortmund supporters repay Monaco fans’ warmth with local hospitality after CL match postponement

A scary situation gives way to opposing fans supporting each other

(BVB/Twitter)

An explosion near Borussia Dortmund’s team bus as it made its way to the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal against Monaco resulted in defender Marc Bartra suffering an arm injury that required surgery. The match was postponed until Wednesday.

As fans inside the Westfalenstadion waited for information on the frightening incident, the Monaco supporters who made the trip to Germany began chanting “Dortmund, Dortmund” in an impromptu show of solidarity.

The gesture was greatly appreciated by their hosts and soon, Dortmund locals began tweeting offers to open up their homes to Monaco fans suddenly faced with an overnight stay in another country if they still wanted to attend the rescheduled match.

These demonstrations of kindness and goodwill serve as important counterbalances to the awfulness of the original incident. Though there are destructive elements, football will always be a community of people with a shared passion above all else.


https://upscri.be/16bb19/

Borussia Dortmund, Puma unhappy with Aubameyang’s Nike tie-ins on the pitch

Nike figures out a way to subvert their rivals in Germany


Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has a penchant for celebrating goals by wearing masks. He’s done it with Batman and Spider-Man masks in the past, so when he did it again with a nondescript mask when he scored in last weekend’s Revierderby it seemed like it was just more of the same.

Except it wasn’t. It was part of his new “Masked Finisher” campaign with Nike.

A few weeks earlier, Aubameyang played with a Nike swoosh in his hair.

The problem with all this? Dortmund are sponsored by Puma, so to have all this Nike business going on during their matches is a source of discomfort.

At the time, Dortmund sporting director Michael Zorc said, “This will certainly be from his personal sponsor, if my interpretation is correct. This will hopefully be a one-off occasion. We’ll certainly address it in talks with him.”

Well, that didn’t work and the mask thing happened. This time, it was Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke who spoke out. From ESPNFC:

“This behaviour is unworthy of a big corporation,” Watzke told Bild. “It can’t be that we have to force through the economic interest of Nike in this way. Our partner is Puma.”

In a statement, Puma said: “We are surprised that a competitor puts a player in such a situation.”

Bild added that Aubameyang — booked for his celebration by referee Felix Zwayer — is set to be fined €50,000 by Dortmund, for whom Nike supplied kit over two spells in the 1990s and 2000s.

Puma shouldn’t be surprised by this, though. Nike did something similar a few years back to Adidas-affiliated Bayern Munich by having Mario Götze wear a shirt with their name emblazoned across it at his unveiling.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty-tackle/bayern-munich-apologize-adidas-players-wearing-nike-shirts-183755997.html

It’s a clever ploy from Nike—undermining their German competitors in their own backyard. Hopefully they’re nice enough to pay their athletes’ fines, though.


https://upscri.be/16bb19/

Mario Götze makes awkward return to Dortmund, regrets Bayern move

Borussia Dortmund fans burned his shirts and called him “Judas,” but now Mario Götze is back after three years with Bayern Munich. Back in April, when rumors of a potential return first surfaced, Dortmund fans held up banners that read “Milan or Madrid. Just not Dortmund. Piss off Götze!” during a match against Werder Bremen.

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European football falls victim to Pokemon Go epidemic

If you see professional footballers running around the pitch while staring at their phones during matches this season, it’s because they’re playing Pokemon Go — a mobile game that has pretty much usurped pornography as the most popular thing on the internet in just a matter of days since its release.

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Bayern Munich think it’s time to take another key player from Borussia Dortmund

Bayern Munich have made a habit of cherry picking some of Borussia Dortmund’s best players of the years and it’s proven to be an effective way to keep BVB in check since they won back to back titles in 2011 and 2012. But now, under new manager Thomas Tuchel, Dortmund have fought back to make the Bundesliga title race relatively interesting this season, which makes Bayern’s official interest in star defender Mats Hummels, who began his career with Bayern, rather interesting.

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DT Exclusive: The Jurgen Klopp halftime team talk that inspired a miracle

Liverpool conceded two goals in the first 10 minutes of the second leg of their Europa League quarterfinal against Borussia Dortmund, replacing the melodically vibrant pre-match unity at Anfield with a familiar gust of dejection. The scoreline held until halftime and Dortmund’s progression seemed like a foregone conclusion, but then something incredible happened. Liverpool scored four times in the second half, with the last two goals coming from Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren, of all people, to win 4-3 and advance on an aggregate score of 5-4.

The Liverpool players later credited the unbelievable turnaround to Jurgen Klopp’s halftime team talk. The following is a transcript of what Klopp told his players in the dressing room during the break.

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Jurgen Klopp’s return to Dortmund in pictures

It can be tough to see your ex doing better than you are after you break up with them, and yet, that was the situation Jurgen Klopp found himself in when he returned to Dortmund for the first time since leaving them in seventh place at the end of last season.

Rejuvenated under Thomas Tuchel and just five points behind first-place Bayern Munich this season, Borussia Dortmund welcomed Klopp and his less impressive Liverpool side for the first leg of a Europa League quarterfinal. In the lead-up to the match, Klopp joked that it was “better to be here than, I don’t know, North Korea or something,” hinting at the inherent awkwardness of the situation, no matter how jovial everyone appeared on the surface.

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Borussia Dortmund’s Yellow Wall performs loudest rendition of “Jingle Bells”

Feeling festive after their 4-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt (even Mats Hummels got a goal!), Borussia Dortmund’s famous Yellow Wall did a boisterous rendition of “Jingle Bells” with the players that would put the Grinch himself in the spirit of the season.

Yellow Wall > Cristiano Ronaldo’s house.