Borussia Dortmund have sacked their coach, Nuri Sahin, after Tuesday’s Champions League defeat at Bologna. The club are 13th in the Champions League, having reached last season’s final, and 10th in the Bundesliga, 20 points behind the leaders, Bayern Munich.
Sahin was appointed as Dortmund’s head coach in the summer after the departure of Edin Terzic, under whom he had been working as an assistant. The defeat at Bologna was a fourth in a row and left the club with one victory from their past nine games.
“Unfortunately, we have not managed to live up to Borussia Dortmund’s sporting ambitions this season,” Sahin said in a statement published by the club confirming his departure. “I wish this special club all the best.”
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The sporting director, Lars Ricken, said Dortmund had “lost faith in being able to achieve our sporting goals” under Sahin. “This decision hurts me personally,” Ricken said, “but it was unavoidable after the game in Bologna.”
Dortmund took a 15th-minute lead in Bologna but conceded two goals in two second-half minutes to lose for the third time in seven Champions League matches.
Sahin came through the ranks as a player at Dortmund and made more than 250 appearances for the club across two spells. Before returning to Dortmund to coach he spent more than two years as the manager of the Turkish team Antalyaspor.
