Dortmund leave Europe wide open

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Dortmund celebrate their win over Manchester City. — AFP

Arsène Wenger, Arsenal’s legendary yet much-maligned manager, could be forgiven a wistful glance far east of London at Dortmund, a historically industrial city with a rather unremarkable history.

Wenger’s melancholic eye, however, would rest on the Westfalenstadion, the largest football ground in Germany with a capacity of 80,000, and home to the irrepressible, current flavour of the past few seasons, Borussia Dortmund.
The reason for this sudden portrayal of Arsène as though in a tragedy film of epic proportions is largely due the style and makeup of this Dortmund side, ably managed with extreme emotion by Jürgen Klopp, the former Mainz 05 striker/defender. Highly reminiscent of the young Arsenal side, Wenger led with much success at the turn of the century, Dortmund play with a fearlessness and zest that has seen them stick their tongues out at the multimillion pound contraptions Manchester City and Real Madrid sent out to face them in the Champions League’s ‘Group of Death’. 14 points and four victories from six games has left them sitting nice and pretty at the top of the standings, and suddenly their ambitions will be that much more audacious.
With talent and class oozing from every part of this youthful side, it reminds one of the situation Arsenal once found themselves in, threatening to conquer Europe and the World, ripping big teams into shreds at will, but ultimately failing to hold on to their prized assets, as each sought either more money in the bank, or more trophies in their cupboards.
Hanging on the Mats Hummels, Mario Gotze, Robert Lewandowski, Sven Bender and Neven Subotic, to name but a few, could prove to be an impossible task. While Klopp has done well to promote youngsters to the first team and buy intelligently, one wonders if the team can sustain a constant drain of world class talent. Wenger could answer that question.