2021 vs 2022: A deep dive into Borussia Dortmund’s insane bad luck with injuries
By Sean Findlay
In 2005, Borussia Dortmund started construction on a fancy state-of-the-art training ground in Dortmund-Brackel. The new home of Marco Reus and his teammates was built on grounds that were previously inhabited by the British Army. Based on BVB’s recent injury history, you’d be forgiven for thinking if it was actually constructed on top of a cursed ancient burial side.
Last season, the problems were so bad that many people in Dortmund believe that the injuries were one of if not the main reason for Marco Rose’s fall from grace.
Sebastian Kehl made it one of his top priorities to tackle this issue before the start of the new season and – besides many other moves – brought in physiotherapists Frank Zöllner and Shad Forsythe to help prevent another injury-plagued season. But did these changes pay off?
… and is it even possible to compare 2022 with 2021?
This can be quite tricky due to many reasons, among them a lot of transfer movement in the summer, rise and fall of players in the Black and Yellows‘ hierarchy and a messy pre-World Cup schedule.
To make the first (almost) halves of these seasons more comparable, I picked the 24 most important players. Replacing former player with incoming player who took their roles. In some cases, this is fairly simple like Salih Özcan replacing Axel Witsel, but in other cases it is less obvious, for example promoting Jamie Bynoe-Gittens to be the replacement for Ansgar Knauff.
Most importantly, the sample size must be the same: the first 15 Bundesliga, six UEFA Champions League and two DFB-Pokal matches. The only matches tracked are the ones players have missed fully. So, this excludes in-game injuries and precautionary substitutions such as Gregor Kobel missing the second half of the game in Copenhagen.