Brendan Rodgers to meet his maker when Liverpool face Dortmund on Sunday. Dortmunds model of play was something that Rodgers has copied - and the parellels between the two clubs are endless. When Dortmund visit Liverpool FC on Sunday Jurgen Klopp and his team may be forgiven for thinking they have taken a trip back in time. In the opposing dugout will be Reds boss Brendan Rodgers and on the pitch will be the side the Northern Irishman is busy building for a return from the wilderness to the summit of English football. A young side playing attractive, attacking football. A side trying to punch above its weight against behemoths like Chelsea and Manchester City with a manager who was brought in from an unfashionable side, and in a stadium with atmosphere and tradition. Klopp may as well be looking in a mirror - because the comparisons are inevitable. Th German is to go-to man for all the media when it comes to comparing young managers with a plan to revive sleeping giants. And last season, there was a distinct feeling that Liverpool had woken up. But the comparisons between the Reds and Germanys most fashionable side go way beyond that. The fans, the stadium and the infrastructure all relate to one another. The managers Its hard not to draw parallels between Klopp and Rodgers. Klopp join Dortmund in 2008 from Mainz and immediately went about starting the clubs revival. Nevertheless, the former striker was an uninspiring appointment, having only ever managed Mainz, Klopp had led the club to promotion and qualification to the UEFA Cup - but ended up being relegated and resigned after failing to take Mainz back to the Bundesliga. He was then trusted as the man to revive Die Borussen. It wouldnt be an easy task, but the charismatic and tactically shrewd Klopp set about righting the wrongs of previous regimes, clearing out deadwood such as Mladen Petric, Robert Kovac and Giovanni Federico and bringing in the likes of Neven Subotic, Mats Hummels, Marcel Schmelzer and Nuri Sahin. Dortmund finished sixth in Klopps first season - an improvement on the 13th place of the previous year. A fifth place finish was attained the following season, but the year would tinged with regret for losing out on the Champions League with a couple of late defeats. Sound familiar? The following season they were champions. Klopp had done it by making shrewd signings and changing the style of play - the exact same blueprint Rodgers is now following at Liverpool. The club While Dortmund cannot boast anywhere near the same sort of success that Liverpool can, the two clubs have suffered similar fortunes in recent decades. The 1990s and early 00s represented a glittering era for the German side, they won the Bundesliga three times during this time and won a memorable European Cup in 1997 - beating the heavy favourites Juventus in the final with two goals from Karlheinz Riedle. The 90s mightnt have been the greatest decade for Liverpool, but the Reds years of dominance had come earlier and while Reds fans were celebrating their re-emergence as a European power under Rafael Benitez, Dortmund were entering financial ruin. Little did we know that Liverpool would soon follow suit. The German club flirted with bankruptcy on a number of occasions from 2002-2006, sold its stadium and even had to lend money from Bayern Munich in order to pay their players. Like Liverpool, a great club was brought to its knees by financial miss-management and left the club in the lower reaches of the league - Klopps arrival changed all that. Now, shrewd signings, a smaller wage bill and success on the pitch have helped lift Dortmund back to both the upper echelons of the Bundesliga and competing with the big boys in Deloittes money league. The stadium An old fashioned stadium, with a world famous stand, known for having brilliant atmospheres, flags and mosiacs. Thats right, the Westfalenstadion, Dortmunds home, can easily pass as a German Anfield. Just substitute the yellow for Red and add almost 40,000 extra seats. Any Liverpool fan that went to the UEFA Cup final in 2001 will tell you that Dortmund have one of the best stadiums in world football. Its an old fashioned style of football ground, with steep stands and large, single-tier ends. For the Kop see the Südtribüne - the South Stand, a 25,000 capacity wall of noise. The Kop is famous for its flags, banners and special mosiacs. The Südtribüne is no different and the Dortmund fans in full voice are a thing to behold. The fans Those that sit in the Kop are known as Kopites - sit in the Südtribüne and youre part of the Yellow Wall - and they are a fearsome sight. The Guardian claimed: They have the capacity to assault the senses with the noise that they generate. The Kop can suck the ball into the back of the net, just ask Jose Mourinho. The same can be said of the Westfalenstadion - ask Manuel Pellegrini, who thought his Malaga side had made it through to the Champions League semi-finals in 2013 - only for Jurgen Klopps side to score twice in the final minutes of stoppage side to send Dortmund through. The German side also proudly sing Youll Never Walk Alone - and on April 16, 2014 they sang a spine-tingling rendition in tribute to those who lost their lives at Hillsborough. A classy gesture from a classy set of fans. The fans follow Dortmund everywhere, 500,000 Dortmunders applied for tickets to the Champions League final in 2013 - Liverpool fans tend to do something similar. Dortmund fans are traditional football fans, they are thinkers, they follow their team home and away and, more than anything, they are passionate. Most Liverpool fans would like to think of themselves in exactly the same way. The city is a mainly left-wing and hard-working place - but with heaps of culture. It has two rivers running through it and is Europes largest canal port. Style of play Pass and move might be the Liverpool groove, but Dortmund are also dancing to the same tune. Klopps team are notoriously hard workers - but play with pace and short passing. Building from the back, the play with a variety of skilled attackers behind a single striker, Robert Lewandowski, who recently departed for Bayern Munich. At their very best they are simply irresistible, witness their 3-0 semi-final victory over Real Madrid in the 2013 Champions League. The attacking style saw them break a Bundesliga record in 2012 - gaining 81 points and losing just three times on their way to the league title. Unfortunately many of their best players have jumped ship, meaning their success on the pitch tailed off a little last term, but with players like Marco Reus, Ciro Immobile, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre Aubameyang they will continue to be major players in Europe for many years to come. Brendan Rodgers, the bar has been set.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 18:16:42 +0000
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