Things can change very quickly in football. Just over three months ago, Nuri Sahin’s Borussia Dortmund side delivered a stunning 7-1 victory over Celtic in the UEFA Champions League, a result that seemed to underline their potential under the club legend’s leadership.
Fast forward to January and Sahin has been sacked after just 222 days in charge, marking the end of a brief and turbulent spell in the dugout.
Despite flashes of promise, Sahin leaves Dortmund with a dismal record of 1.48 points per game - the worst return for a head coach at the club in 17 years. His reign, once filled with optimism given his storied playing career with Dortmund, ultimately unravelled due to inconsistent results and poor performances both domestically and in Europe.
While the October demolition of Celtic hinted at brighter days, it proved to be an outlier rather than a turning point. Defensive frailties and a lack of tactical coherence has plagued the team throughout the campaign, leaving them 10th in the Bundesliga table, an astonishing 20 points behind leaders Bayern Munich.
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Lars Ricken, BVB Managing Director for Sport, stressed: “We value Nuri Sahin and his work very much, we hoped for a long-term collaboration and until the very end we had hope that we could turn things around together.
"After four defeats in a row, due to only one win in the last nine games and currently tenth in the Bundesliga table, we have unfortunately lost faith in being able to achieve our sporting goals in the current constellation. This decision hurts me personally, but it was unavoidable after the game in Bologna."
“Unfortunately, we have not managed to live up to Borussia Dortmund's sporting ambitions this season at this point in time. I wish this special club all the best,” Sahin, who represented Dortmund over 200 times as a player, commented.
