Borussia Dortmund have parted company with manager Lucien Favre, according to Sven Westerschulze of Bild. His departure comes after a less-than-impressive start to the season for the Black and Yellow, which culminated in a shock 5-1 home defeat to promoted Stuttgart on Saturday night.
Favre, who has been in charge at Dortmund since 2018, leaves the club fifth in the Bundesliga with just one win from their last five games. He did, though, successfully see them through to the knock-out stages of the Champions League, from a group consisting of Lazio, Club Brugge and Zenit St. Petersburg.
Lucien Favre Sacked By Borussia Dortmund
Poor Start Key to Sacking
While Dortmund may have won their Champions League group at a canter, their form in domestic competition has been less than impressive. They are often tipped to challenge for the title alongside Bayern Munich, but currently find themselves five points off that mark.
While this seems like a small gap that could be bridged fairly easily, there has been no sign of that happening in recent Bundesliga matches, and the heavy defeat to Stuttgart, which put them only two points behind Dortmund in the table, proved to be the final straw.
Speaking after that game, Favre told reporters: “It was a catastrophe. It was bad. We were not good at winning the ball. We made too many big mistakes. It’s hard to explain. If you’re not good at winning the ball, by that I mean the whole team, then you have a problem.”
Since starting November with a 3-2 home defeat to Bayern in Der Klassiker, Dortmund have won just once – a 5-2 win away at Hertha Berlin. Following that, they lost 2-1 at home to Köln and drew 1-1 with Eintracht Frankfurt before the Stuttgart hammering.
In other domestic competitions, Dortmund lost the DFL-Supercup to Bayern back in September but are into the second round of the DFB-Pokal after cruising past MSV Duisberg.
Bild report that the Dortmund squad will be informed of the decision when they train this afternoon.
Potential Replacements
According to Gianluca Di Marzio, Dortmund’s U23 coach Edin Terzic will oversee the first-team initially, keeping his current staff from the youth set-up. An up-turn in fortunes could lead to him landing the job permanently.
The leading candidate in the long-term appears to be Borussia Monchengladbach boss Marco Rose, who could agree a deal in principle to join Dortmund in the summer of 2021.
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