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As managerial sackings go, this one appeared to be a classic of the genre.
Few bosses come back from a 5-1 thrashing at home to a recently-promoted opponent and Lucien Favre was no exception after Borussia Dortmund were humiliated by Stuttgart on Saturday.
The Swiss was asked to clear his desk less than 24 hours later with Dortmund installing assistant coach Edin Terzic as their interim manager until the end of the season with input from youth coaches Sebastian Geppert and Otto Addo.
But that result, however desperate, was only to scratch the surface of Favre’s problems at the Westfalenstadion as it all came crashing down two-and-a-half years on from his appointment.
Lucien Favre was sacked as Borussia Dortmund manager on Sunday, less than 24 hours after his team were thrashed 5-1 at home by Stuttgart in the Bundesliga
The magnitude of an error-strewn displays was writ large on the Westfalenstadion screens
ALREADY PLAYING CATCH-UP
Fundamentally, football is a results business and Dortmund were already lagging behind in their perennial efforts to keep pace with Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga.
Four defeats from their opening 11 league matches had left them six points behind the surprise current leaders of the Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen, and five behind Bayern.
Also ahead of Dortmund are RB Leipzig and Wolfsburg and with such unreliable form, it was looking increasingly unlikely that Dortmund would be Bayern’s closest challengers as they have been in the past two seasons under Favre.
The 3-2 home defeat Dortmund suffered against Bayern in early November brought no surprise or shame, but their other defeats, 2-0 at Augsburg, 2-1 at home to Cologne and then Saturday’s 5-1 thumping, simply weren’t good enough.
Marco Reus, Julian Brandt and Nico Schulz react during Saturday’s Stuttgart horror show
Dortmund, down in fifth, are already five points shy of their rivals for the title, Bayern Munich
And it’s all particularly galling because Bayern themselves are displaying weaknesses in the early weeks of the season that simply haven’t been there in recent seasons – and Dortmund looked unable to capitalise.
Contrast this with their Champions League form, however, which saw them top Group F ahead of Lazio despite taking just one point from six against the Italians.
This relatively smooth progress has led to a pretty favourable last-16 draw against Sevilla but Favre won’t be around to see it. In the end, their poor domestic form counted for more than their European results.
In contrast to their league struggles, Dortmund’s Champions League progress was serene
A VICTIM OF PROGRESS MADE?
While there were few dissenting voices at Favre’s sacking, it can be argued that this season is being measured against the progress made in the last two under the manager.
When he came in, Dortmund has just scraped into the Champions League places on goal difference following a turbulent 2017-18 season that saw Peter Bosz sacked in December and replaced by Peter Stoger.
Favre improved Dortmund during his first season to the extent that they ultimately finished just two points behind champions Bayern, having led the table deep into the Spring.
They also finished 2019-20 in second place, albeit much further adrift, and have become the de facto principal challengers to Bayern.
English star Jadon Sancho cuts a dejected figure during Saturday’s embarrassing defeat
Jude Bellingham couldn’t quite believe what was unfolding as Dortmund collapsed
All the while, Favre had fashioned Dortmund into a team of youthful talents by incorporating the likes of Jadon Sancho, Erling Haaland, Giovanni Reyna, Jude Bellingham, Reinier and Youssoufa Moukoko into his side.
Though Favre leaves Dortmund without winning any silverware, he did win 68 of his 110 matches in charge and recorded a points average of 2.09, which is higher than every Dortmund coach in history.
There was a palpable sense that, in terms of personnel at least, the team had evolved to a certain degree in those two years. But that progress had come to a crashing halt.
OPEN CRITICISM FROM THE DRESSING ROOM
Perhaps sensing the writing was on the wall for their manager, senior Dortmund players went to town with their criticism following the Stuttgart loss.
‘Unfortunately, we only take risks in space where the gain is fairly small but defensive consequences can be huge,’ said Mats Hummels.
‘2-1, we gave the ball away. 3-1, we gave the ball away. 4-1, we gave the ball away.’
Captain Marco Reus put it even more succinctly: ‘We’re a team that can’t defend.’
Such naked criticism from senior members of the team is never a good indicator of harmony in the dressing room.
Defender Mats Hummels didn’t hold back in his criticism of Favre’s tactics on Saturday
Passing the ball out from the back has become fashionable for pretty much every top-level team but it only works if your players are capable of doing it.
As Hummels went on to explain, Dortmund had fallen into the habit of keeping the ball at the back for too long, seemingly incapable of moving it forwards quickly, and so invited pressure from opponents which leads to errors.
A competent manager would have instructed his players to do something else with the ball after they gave the ball away the first time and conceded.
But it seems Favre had placed a tactical straitjacket on them. In the 1-1 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt a week earlier, Axel Witsel and Mahmoud Dahoud were overwhelmed in midfield, with Dortmund restricted to counter-attacks against a team they should have dominated.
Marco Reus also asked questions of Dortmund’s defence following the humiliating defeat
NO ENTHUSIASM TO ENERGISE A YOUNG TEAM
What Dortmund needed to get the best out of their exciting young side was a Jurgen Klopp-type figure who could inspire and enthuse them while offering an arm round the shoulder when things went wrong.
But Klopp and his ‘heavy metal football’ has been and gone from the Westfalenstadion and Favre lacked the personality to drive him team on in a similar way.
A calm and quiet presence on the sidelines, he just wasn’t the right man to take Sancho, Haaland and Co to the level where they would regularly challenge for silverware at home and in the Champions League.
Favre inadvertently summed himself up in a recent television interview when he said: ‘We don’t need to underestimate ourselves but we also need to stop overestimating ourselves.’
Erling Haaland has been excellent since he arrived but Favre couldn’t take the team further
That’s not to say that his young guns didn’t shine under his management. Sancho scored 36 goals and contributed 45 assists in 102 matches under Favre, while Haaland has scored 33 in 32 since his arrival at the club.
Favre had the confidence to make Moukoko the youngest-ever Bundesliga appearance maker aged 16 years and one day late last month and the youngest to play in the Champions league at 16 years and 87 days.
But two last-16 exits in the Champions League, albeit to eventual finalists Tottenham in 2018-19 and Paris Saint-Germain last season, said to many that Favre didn’t possess the energy to take Dortmund to the next level.
Their next full-time appointment, likely to be at the end of the season, will be crucial in seeing if this young team sticks together.
Favre had the confidence to hand 16-year-old Youssoufa Moukoko his Dortmund debut
Sancho was heavily linked with Manchester United during the summer window but Dortmund steadfastly stuck to their £108million valuation of the England star and Ed Woodard refused to pay it.
He will without question be linked again with United and elite European teams next summer, as will Haaland, although the Norwegian striker hasn’t been around at the club as long as Sancho.
MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS?
Dortmund’s choice for their next manager is crucial now, which perhaps explains why they plan to give themselves until the end of the season to do so.
It needs to be someone who can not only keep their current teams together but energise them again and who cane get those little extras that matter in the big games (Favre won just one of six league meetings with Bayern, for example, and suffered 5-0 and 4-0 thrashings).
Mauricio Pochettino has inevitably been linked with the job but Marco Rose, the manager of Borussia Monchengladbach, is reportedly the favourite.
Marco Rose has reportedly agreed a deal to become the next manager of Borussia Dortmund
Former Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has been liked with the job at Westfalenstadion
Rose has created the kind of vibrancy in his Gladbach team that Dortmund crave and getting out of a tough Champions League group containing Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk to set up a last-16 tie with Manchester City was impressive.
They’re not exactly setting the Bundesliga alight, however, sitting eighth at the moment but there’s a long way still to go.
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