#360view: Thomas Tuchel has big shoes to fill at Dortmund

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  • In the hot-seat: Tuchel.

    One of football’s most endearing manager-club relationships ended last season as Jurgen Klopp called time on his six-year tenure at Borussia Dortmund.

    For the powerbrokers at the Signal Iduna Park, they will be hoping Thomas Tuchel proves just as iconic and era-defining as his charismatic predecessor.

    It’s easy to get carried away by the cult of Klopp: the touchline histrionics, the quotable lines and the love of heavy metal. But before he took over in 2008, Dortmund had been for far too long a Hamburgin-waiting; flirting with relegation amid financial mismanagement.

    Consistent and successful Champions League football looked a long and distant dream. But Klopp redefined and redesigned the club around himself, briefly breaking Bayern Munich’s dominance and then for two years rivalling the Bavarian giants at home and in Europe, playing some exhilarating football in the process.

    Tuchel makes his competitive debut in the dugout tonight against Borussia Monchengladbach, a club moulded in a similar way to Klopp’s Dortmund under Lucien Favre. The 41-year-old was also hired via Mainz – albeit in the midst of a season’s sabbatical – but the comparisons largely end there, as Tuchel is a very different character.

    Quiet, unassuming and almost bookish, how he imposes himself upon a group of players so used to Klopp’s methods will be intriguing.

    He’s made an notable statement for today’s match, dropping veteran goalkeeper and Klopp’s preferred captain Roman Weidenfeller for new signing Roman Burki.

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    The move can be viewed as a political one, Weidenfeller a hugely influential presence in the dressing room, but watching his performances for much of last season it appears to be a strictly football-related decision. 

    Dortmund were crying out for a replacement of real class for the German who appeared too comfortable and without sufficient competition. Subsequently his performance levels dropped.

    There had already been some discontent for Tuchel to quell with Kevin Grosskruetz, another standard-bearer of the Klopp age, upset at his lack of involvement.

    Signs in pre-season show that Tuchel will be adopting a high-intensity defensive shape, similar to Klopp’s counter pressing – ‘gegenpressing’ – in trying to win the ball back in the opponent’s half. But in possession, Tuchel appears to prefer a more patient build-up, deviating from the all-out pace of Klopp’s vision, encouraging possession.

    Outside of Burki and the arrival of Gonzalo Castro – a solid addition from Leverkusen – there has not been a great deal of movement in the market, with Tuchel happy to work with virtually the same squad in the house that Klopp built.

    With Wolfsburg now Bayern’s No 1 contenders, Leverkusen, Schalke and ‘Gladbach all strong and in the dogfight to earn Champions League football, it’s a bold but confident strategy for a coach many in German football are very excited to see how he fares at a ‘big club’. 

    None more so than those behind the scenes at Dortmund, desperate to avoid slipping back into the moribund mediocrity of the previous decade.

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