Borussia Dortmund’s five recent transfer ‘What Ifs…?’
By Sean Findlay
Alexander Isak
The numbers:
Bought for: 8.60 million euros
Sold for: 15 million euros
Current market value: 50 million euros
Fair warning: this one might cause you physical pain especially if you have seen his start to life at Newcastle United. After snatching the young Swedish striker off Real Madrid in a last-minute January transfer, the young striker was immediately greeted in the most Tuchel-way possible: At a press conference the coach didn’t really hide the fact that he wanted to keep Adrian Ramos and didn’t really know Alexander Isak. Welcome to the Bundesliga!
It didn’t get much better from there and the Solna native might be one of the most mysterious BVB transfers in recent years. After not playing Isak at all in the first half of the 2018/19 season the BVB bosses sent him out on loan to Willem II where he scored an impressive 13 goals in just 16 Eredivisie matches.
That summer he was sold to Real Sociedad for just 6.5 million euros plus add-ons. However, this deal included a buyback option and Dortmund kept some of the transfer rights. That’s smart right? Not if you complete this transfer saga by selling those rights off to La Real in the summer of 2021. At the end of the day Sociedad paid around just 15 million euros for Isak, before eventually selling him to Newcastle United for 70 million euros this summer.
Would he have a role on today’s squad?
Let’s make this quick: He would be a starter even if he doesn’t spend as much time in the box as Haaland or Haller. The still incredibly young and somewhat raw Blågult striker would add a whole new dimension to Borussia Dortmund’s attack.