Three coaches who could take over if Borussia Dortmund decide to part ways with Edin Terzic in the summer
Julian Nagelsmann
The DFB-Elf head coach is currently a major favourite to lead the Black and Yellows' charge next season, should the board part ways with Edin Terzic. Despite Euro 2024 preparation in sight for Nagelsmann, he has been very open to the idea of securing a pre-agreement at club level, where he made his name with Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig in particular.
"“There’s good chance that I’ll sign before the Euros if I have an offer that I’m happy with. But I don’t have anything on the table as of now.”"
- Nagelsmann on his post-Euros future
But the question is, would he be a good fit for Borussia Dortmund? On paper, the answer seems to be a resounding yes.
In his latest Bundesliga spell with Bayern Munich, the young trainer often prioritised the system over the players - much to his detriment. It was a hard task following Hansi Flick’s success with the same crop of players who had accomplished much in the prior years. Coming in boldly to ask those players to fit into his style set the wrong impressions from the get-go. Just ask Manuel Neuer and Thomas Müller.
However, at Borussia Dortmund there is currently a great necessity for a defined system. It is often difficult to find one under Terzic, where the team especially looks hopeless when penetrating low block sides who have learned the art of keeping Dortmund at bay.
A clearly established sytem would play fairly in taking this BVB team to the next level. There is no defined star as such, unlike prior years. It may be in fact the case where Nagelsmann is the ‘it’ factor of this team.
In his spell at Bayern, Nagelsmann was flexible in his formations. He sometimes opted for a 4-2-4 shape and a 3-2-5 in-attack formation. Similiarly for Germany, it is just a base of 4-2-3-1 that is preferred but the attacking shape remains the same.
The main features of the 3-2-5 often has the left-back push up and the right-back tuck into a back three for cover. The right winger plays as wide as possible to stretch the play, whilst the left-winger tucks in as an inside forward.
Borussia Dortmund have been playing with blisters in the final third in 2023/24, and Nagelsmann’s 3-2-5 would allow them to create gaps across low or mid-block sides. BVB have notoriously struggled to do this under Terzic, thus a new system in place such as this would free talented players to collectively attack with a high press.
As demonstrated at Bayern however, the attacking formation leaves the team susceptible to counter attacks. It can be argued that for this system to thrive exponentially, pacy centre-backs and a competent defensive midfield would be required.
Some of the other drawbacks would be that the current personnel in midfield would be sliced open quite easily. The lack of presence and defensive stability has caused many a problem in that area this campaign, so a new look midfield would have to be shaped for a Nagelsmann team to fully thrive at BVB.