OMG — Borussia Dortmund

BVB have the nicest enemies. Schalke and Bayern

BVB have the nicest enemies.

saved Dortmund, many BVB haters say. And it is true, even if some in black and yellow admit it only through clenched teeth. The blue-and-whites from Schalke and the grandees from Munich are thus Dortmund's dearest enemies, to borrow from Werner Herzog.

BVB received a major shove from FC Schalke

BVB received a major shove from FC Schalke 04.

04. At the start of 1974 the Ruhr club were toiling in the second-tier Regionalliga West. President Heinz Guenter had imposed a rigid austerity course. The opening match in the new Westfalenstadion on April 2, 1974 against archrivals Schalke drew around 50,000 spectators and gave BVB a badly needed cash injection.

Things were in poor shape at Borussia in those days.

Players waive wages: the 1973/74 season could only

Players waive wages: the 1973/74 season could only be completed because the players gave up part of their wages in spring 1974.

be completed because the players gave up part of their wages in spring 1974. By that point the best players had already been sold off in emergency deals. Hans-Werner Hartl was practically shipped out to Bochum and Theo Buecker sold to Duisburg. The depleted remainder of Dortmund's squad was sharply criticized by coach Janos Bedl, who said that if a professional showed so little for so much money, then he had to be shown his limits.

It worked only to a degree. Bedl had to go after a 1:1 at bottom club Viktoria Cologne. BVB idol Dieter Kurrat took over and reached the minimum target: sixth place and qualification for the new two-division 2. Bundesliga.

Dortmund and money - it has always been

Dortmund and money - it has always been a delicate relationship.

a delicate relationship. After the intoxicating Champions League triumph of 1997, many skeptics asked how the club were financing all of it. The luxury squad, including former Italy-based stars Julio Cesar, Juergen Kohler, Andreas Moeller, Karl-Heinz Riedle, Stefan Reuter and Matthias Sammer, cost a fortune.

On the very day of the final the Sueddeutsche Zeitung suggested that BVB actually lacked the cash to keep fueling the star ensemble. Gerd Niebaum recommended that the article be thrown deep into the trash. But the journalists were right.

Quite unexpectedly, Dortmund sold Karl-Heinz Riedle to Liverpool in the summer of 1997 for just 2.5 million euros. The result was that the club could show black figures again and keep its financial imbalance under the lid a little longer. The trick worked in the short term, but Ottmar Hitzfeld saw clearly what was happening.

He no longer received the usual generous sums for new stars and, frustrated by friction with Niebaum and Sammer, withdrew to the newly created post of sporting director, where he achieved very little. He later proved his coaching class again at Bayern, winning five more league titles there. His successor Nevio Scala never really reached the team, and after the greatest success in club history Dortmund ended the following season only tenth, without the valuable extra income from Europe.

The stock-market Borussia: on October 31, 2000 Borussia

The stock-market Borussia: on October 31, 2000 Borussia Dortmund became the first German football club to go public.

Dortmund became the first German football club to go public. With the help of Deutsche Bank, the share was issued at 11 euros - a price it would never reach again by December 31, 2019. The club placed 13.5 million shares on the market, raising a net 150 million euros. With that money Borussia Dortmund would flood the transfer market from 2000 onward.

By summer 2002 the investment in new stars had already passed 100 million euros. The step matched the times. Germany was in the grip of stock-market fever.

The Neuer Markt segment had been introduced in 1997, Deutsche Telekom's flotation had turned speculation into a national pastime, and the media drove the euphoria with ever bigger superlatives. BVB and Gerd Niebaum wanted a slice of that boom and assigned a consortium led by Deutsche Bank to prepare the flotation. Expectations surrounding the first football stock were enormous.

Club members tried to subscribe in droves before the pricing phase even began. Analysts could hardly contain their praise: Dortmund were a top club, therefore a top brand. While Niebaum and his colleagues promised double-digit returns, experienced investment bankers warned that the value of the BVB share would depend not only on the company but on the performance of the players too. Other listed football clubs in Europe had already shown violent fluctuations and poor investment quality. The warnings proved correct. The share closed its very first day well down, ending at 9.52 euros. Niebaum, manager Michael Meier and their team still let themselves be celebrated by business journalists. By November 2002 the share price had fallen to 2.50 euros. For shareholders the supposedly clever move was a mega-flop. No dividend was ever paid, no real gains ever came, and the low point was 0.85 euros in 2009. By the end of 2019 the share had only recovered to around 9 euros. Bayern boss Uli Hoeness would later complain that many journalists had no idea about the stock market and had portrayed Bayern as fools for refusing to go public.

By 2004, after the spendthrift policies of Dr.

Gerd Niebaum, BVB were on the verge of insolvency. During the German national team's camp in Portugal for the European Championship, people even discussed whether the former champions might lose their license.

Help came, of all places, from Munich. When Dortmund no longer knew what to do and could not pay salaries, Bayern advanced two million euros for a few months without security, as Uli Hoeness later put it. In addition, Bayern bought Torsten Frings, at that moment Dortmund's only remaining top star, for 9.5 million euros.

Years later Watzke confirmed that Hoeness's version was true.

No German title without Schalke: sporting-wise, BVB's league

No German title without Schalke: sporting-wise, BVB's league titles of 1995 and 1996 probably would not have been possible without Schalke 04.

titles of 1995 and 1996 probably would not have been possible without Schalke 04. In 1995 Schalke, sitting comfortably in mid-table, beat league leaders Werder Bremen 4:2 on Matchday 32 and kept Dortmund in the race. A year later Schalke helped again by beating Bayern 2:1 on Matchday 33, allowing BVB to celebrate - thanks to royal blue.

A breakdown in the Champions League: things were

A breakdown in the Champions League: things were anything but royal on April 1, 1998 at the Santiago Bernabeu.

anything but royal on April 1, 1998 at the Santiago Bernabeu. Borussia Dortmund became the innocent victim of one of the biggest mishaps in any European match involving a German side. Before the semifinal against Real Madrid had even kicked off, Real ultras tore down one of the goals.

At first the 85,000 spectators and millions watching on TV thought it was an April Fool's joke. It was not. The goal in front of the north stand had in fact buckled under the weight of the ultras.

It took 76 minutes to bring a replacement from Real's training ground. The absurdity of the scene inspired RTL host Guenther Jauch and commentator Marcel Reif to one-liners that later won a Grimme Award. Dortmund, however, failed to seize the moment.

Instead of lodging a protest and refusing to play, they played nicely and lost 2:0, too big a burden to overturn in the 0:0 second leg.

Few players polarized Borussia Dortmund supporters and media

Few players polarized Borussia Dortmund supporters and media as strongly as Andreas Andy Moeller.

as strongly as Andreas Andy Moeller. The Frankfurt-born attacker joined BVB in 1988 and, with his pace and shooting, quickly became a crowd favorite. That changed in the spring of 1990 when Eintracht Frankfurt wanted their home-grown prodigy back.

Moeller followed the call of his hometown, where the wages were still much better than in Dortmund, but he made one unforgivable mistake: over the stadium loudspeaker he declared that he would and wanted to fulfill his contract at Borussia. He did not. He left shortly afterward.

The kitschy farewell in which club president Niebaum's daughter recited a poem ending with Andy Moeller, thank you could not have been more over the top. In 1994 Moeller returned, attracted by UEFA Cup money, and was initially whistled. Only his slalom goal in a 3:2 derby win over Schalke broke the ice.

During his second spell he fought off the label of eternal talent, led Dortmund to the 1995 title, and immediately produced the next cringeworthy moment by declaring the title day the best day of his life, ahead of even the World Cup and the birth of his daughter. The title defense in 1996 and the Champions League win in 1997 were closely bound up with his quality, but being Moeller, his final departure also had to be spectacular: in the summer of 2000 he joined hated rivals Schalke 04 and became one of BVB's dearest enemies himself.