Nuri Sahin was only in office as head coach at Dortmund for just over six months. The experiment with the 36-year-old has failed miserably. The former U19 coach Mike Tullberg takes over on an interim basis.
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- Dortmund lost 2:1 to FC Bologna in the Champions League on Tuesday evening and also lost their fourth match of the year.
- On Wednesday morning, BVB announced the dismissal of Sahin.
- In the meantime, Dortmund have also announced who will be on the sidelines on Saturday. It is the previous U19 coach Mike Tullberg.
The coaching experiment with Nuri Sahin at Borussia Dortmund is over. After just over six months, the Bundesliga club is parting ways with its head coach. BVB made the announcement the day after the 2-1 defeat at FC Bologna in the Champions League. Several media outlets had previously reported the news. The defeat means Dortmund are in danger of missing out on a place in the knockout round of the Champions League.
It is now clear who will be on the touchline against Werder Bremen on Saturday: Mike Tullberg. The 39-year-old Dane has been BVB's youth coach since 2019 - most recently at U19 level. His points average after 102 games is 2.43.
In the Bundesliga, the Westphalians are currently a long way off the minimum target of Champions League qualification. On June 1, BVB were still in the final of the top flight. After three defeats in the first three Bundesliga games of the new year, BVB are already seven points behind fourth place.
"This decision also hurts me personally, but it was unavoidable after the game in Bologna," said managing director Lars Ricken on the separation. Sahin is quoted by BVB as saying: "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 was the eighth BVB coach since Klopp
Since the end of Jürgen Klopp's era almost ten years ago, the coaching position at the Revierclub has resembled a permanent construction site. Sahin is already the eighth coach since 2015 to have failed after Klopp left Dortmund. Among them were high-caliber names such as Thomas Tuchel, Lucien Favre and Marco Rose.
After the current Leipzig head coach Rose left in the summer of 2022, BVB had Edin Terzic and most recently Sahin as coaches with a strong Dortmund connection, but without much previous experience. Terzic was the Revierclub's youth and assistant coach for many years before taking over as Dortmund's head coach for six months in December 2020 and then again for two years after Rose's departure.
Although BVB only lost the championship under him on the final matchday in 2023 and advanced to the Champions League final against Real Madrid (0:2) last summer, the club and Terzic parted ways.
His former assistant coach Sahin, who had only returned to BVB in this role in January 2024, took over his youth club, which he had joined as a 12-year-old and made his professional debut for at the age of 16, with great praise from the club's management.
Promising start, rapid disillusionment
By contrast, the 36-year-old's experience as a head coach was limited. The former Turkish international was in charge of Antalyaspor in his parents' homeland from 2021 to 2023.
After a promising start as the new coach last summer, disillusionment quickly set in again in Dortmund. Injury worries also accelerated BVB's downward spiral.
As early as October, Sahin was the focus of public criticism. BVB has since recovered and still has a chance of advancing directly to the round of 16 in the Champions League. However, the start to the 2025 football year was a complete failure: Dortmund first lost 3:2 to Bayer Leverkusen due to a lack of substitutes, then four days later lost 4:2 at newly promoted Kiel after an indisputable performance and then 2:0 in Frankfurt last Friday. The next setback followed on Tuesday in Bologna.
