Borussia Dortmund managing director Lars Ricken has explained that young players aren't present in the squad by accident. The club has in fact planned out a strategy that focuses on bringing in emerging talents whom they wish to build a future around.
In the current transfer window, the Bundesliga giants have made four signings and all of them are 18 or below as Justin Lerma, Joane Gadou, Kaua Prates and Konstantinos Karetsas have joined as part of the club's ambitious youth recruitment strategy.
Now the BVB is also pursuing 19-year-old Said El Mala from FC Koln as Ricken revealed recruitment of players comes on the back of many young guns that broke into the senior team from their youth academy last season too.
""It’s true that we’ve recently signed some young players, but this isn’t something that happens overnight. We had already been relying on young players such as Carney Chukwuemeka, Daniel Svensson and Jobe Bellingham – who was 19 at the time. Then, at the end of last season, Luca Reggiani, Samuel Inacio and Mathis Albert came through from the youth ranks. So this is a trend that has been emerging for some time.""he told Ruhr Nachrichten
Dortmund's transfer policy has never been about signing proven stars from other clubs. But rather roping in young and promising talents, and developing them into world-beaters. Even then, the Bundesliga side's push for teenage starlets has been more aggressive this summer than ever before, having also added talents like Takato Yamamoto and Roberto Scaglioni to their youth side.
Ricken further added that Dortmund aren't merely snapping up young players for the sake of it, but only going after those who could make a real difference for the side on the pitch.
""Nevertheless, the key factor for us in the recent transfers was that the players would help us improve on the pitch straight away. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether someone is 17, 18, 19 or 30 years old. The difference lies more in the financial valuation. We wouldn’t have paid a transfer fee for a 30-year-old comparable to the one we paid for Karetsas.""
In the coming days, it's been reported that Borussia Dortmund are going to make a €50million bid for El Mala as Koln had rejected their previous two bids which fell short of their asking price, a further demonstration of the club's fierce youth-first approach in the transfer market.
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