Borussia Dortmund to focus on elevating local talent via the academy

The youth academy has been a point of conversation both within Dortmund as well as amongst observers, with the club's approach being analyzed from all angles, particularly because of the lack of star players coming through into the first team. While players such as Youssoufa Moukoko and Ansgar Knauff made the jump to professional football with BVB, their impact was limited due to either the tactical approaches of the coaches that their careers were entrusted to (Moukoko), or they were simply seen as surplus to the already existing talent at the club (Knauff).

Neither of these names, nor the names of their recent predecessors had an impact that comes close to the youth talent of old, namely current head coach Nuri Şahin or Mario Götze. Players such as Gio Reyna, Jadon Sancho and Jamie Gittens are not taken into account in this assessment as they were brought to Dortmund at an age where a good portion of their development took place at a foreign club. 

According to Head of Youth Development Thomas Broich, whilst the club has been very good at promoting players such as Gittens Sancho etc, the focus on local players is now coming more into perspective: 

"Over the past ten years, the main focus has been on putting the youth department on the map, making a name for itself and being attractive to top talents from all over the world. BVB was extremely successful in this field…Now the wish has been explicitly expressed that boys from our region should achieve this status again, that we should do even more honour to the idea of training."

- Thomas Broich

The reason for this change in focus, as Broich notes, is a more competitive market where other clubs have taken the blueprint Dortmund had become so famous for and started to copy it or great effect. Brighton in the Premier League is a great example of this, where young players are able to go and play attractive attacking football on one of the world’s biggest stages. Dortmund still have the allure of a richer history, Champions League football and a better chance/ ability to win trophies going for them, but Brighton’s expenditures this summer show their financial might and ability to compete, at least on that level. 

Brighton is far from the only club to start employing this model, but considering the fact that the financial landscape has changed so much, many of the moves that made Dortmund so successful during the Klopp era for example are simply not possible. It would be very unlikely for Dortmund to be able to sign a player like İlkay Gündoğan for 5.5 million euros from FC Nürnburg the way they did in 2011, as by the time a player is 20-23 (and even younger in some cases) they are either already at one of the big spending clubs or likely already “worth more”, which would mean the club is then forced to have a much higher financial outlay for their services.

We see this very much in the case of even younger players like Jude Bellingham, who joined Dortmund for 25 million euros at the age of 17. Karim Adeyemi, as another example, joined Dortmund at 20 years of age for between 30-37 million euros depending on the source, and while attackers are often far more expensive, a player like Adeyemi would have likely cost Dortmund closer to 20 million euros at back in 2011/12. 

This financial strain makes fostering local talent even more imperative, as players who actually identify with the club are more likely to want to stay for longer stints and play an integral role in Dortmund’s success. Of the players on Dortmund’s current roster, Kjell Wätjen is the primary candidate for this role, and could very much become an important figure for Dortmund in the years to come. 

Supporting players like Wätjen to supplement the Dortmund first team will help preserve the club’s core identity in the starting 11 while also possibly helping form a more long-term core of local players who want to help the club they grew up following succeed. This sort of settled core can help the club offset the sale of players who may be more prone to “come and go” in the larger deals that Broich speaks of where talent is poached by more financially powerful sides.