Another season where Dortmund were good, but not good enough. After a messy first half of the campaign, they emerged as the closest challengers to league leaders Bayern. However, the eventual winners from Munich were yet again too strong for Dortmund.
Dortmund’s performance was carried by their strong second half of the campaign with only 4 defeats and 13 wins. Disregarding the final Hoffenheim game, they merely conceded 13 goals in 16 games.
Moreover, clever transfers during the winter break such as the purchases of Emre Can and Erling Håland (13 goals in 15 games) to complement top scorer Jadon Sancho have aided Dortmund’s game a lot.
However, Dortmund were haunted by an attitude problem throughout the season. Especially, in the first half of the campaign they failed to win against beatable opponents such as Frankfurt due to the players’ lack of focus. This problem was augmented by shaky performances in the back before the winter break.
Some have pointed to coach Lucien Favre as the problem. He has been blamed for a lack of motivational energy. Some see this as the source of Dortmund’s defensive and self-conscious performances in important games such as the clashes with Bayern, both of which they lost.
However, not least thanks to the 2019/20 season, Favre has now emerged as the Dortmund coach with the highest average point score of all previous BVB coaches.
Dortmund will thus continue with Favre when they will yet again try to topple Bayern in 2020/21. Whatever the team’s lack of motivation in certain matches is blamed on, they will first have to tackle this problem in order to be serious candidates for silverware.
