Why Jurgen Klopp's Departure Is Ultimately the Best Move for Borussia Dortmund

With a cold stare and a look of contemplation on his face, Jurgen Klopp sat over a bright yellow microphone in front of a matching sponsorship board on Wednesday afternoon and released a statement that shook the world of football to its core. 

“I have always said that the day I feel that I am no longer the perfect coach for this extraordinary club I will say that," announced the Borussia Dortmund coach to a room full of international press, as reported by The Guardian on April 15.

"That is something I have thought about in every phase here at Dortmund and decided in the last few weeks, days, that I was no longer able to be absolutely sure about that."

As honest as the charismatic coach has always been, Klopp—the favourite of every neutral fan across the world of football—was unfortunately as accurate as ever in describing the struggles he has had to come to terms with at the Westfalenstadion this season. 

The 47-year-old manager has done incredible things with the Black and Yellows, but his departure this summer may well prove to ultimately be the best move for the German giants. 

Talk of a successor may indeed prove too soon for millions of fans still mourning Klopp's decision, yet a brief and simple comparison to the man expected to succeed him at Dortmund, Thomas Tuchel, certainly offers an alternative and brighter future for Bundesliga club. 

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

Tuchel—heavily reported by German tabloid Bild (and reported in English in the above Guardian report) as the new Dortmund manager to be—would bring with him a fresh approach to a decaying side. The former Mainz manager will certainly have his own ideas for the likes of Mats Hummels and Ilkay Gundogan whilst bringing in a whole host of his own targets. 

The German coach famously hung up his boots at the age of 26 and began coaching immediately, turning into the tactical wizard that made him the hottest property in German football when he decided to leave Mainz in May of 2014. 

Tuchel burst on to the scene at the Carnival Club in 2010 playing high-pressing football that wasn't too far off what Klopp's Dortmund would win the title playing that very season and the campaign after that. Yet where Tuchel continued to experiment and keep things fresh at Mainz, Klopp found his team stagnating and has struggled to find that winning mentality or formation that made Dortmund so formidable just a few seasons ago. 

In the deepest, darkest moments of this current season, fans have found themselves completely at odds with the team that was playing before them. Formations were thrown in and out from one week to the next, and players were keeping spots when they should have lost them, while hungry talent sat awaiting its shot on the bench.

Dortmund won their glory through a certain style of football, played within a certain system and formation. The Bundesliga, in all its competitive glory, quickly caught on to this and set about nullifying it. By the time Pep Guardiola had walked in the door at the Allianz Arena, the German top division had already brought his greatest opponent to their knees. 

Klopp's great fault was his inability to find an alternative to his initial success. Dortmund simply couldn't get that tricky second album right, after their debut hit went all the way to the Champions League final. 

Similar frustration was then let loose on the transfer market, where Klopp and his colleagues Michael Zorc and Hans-Joachim Watzke went searching for answers in a place that had never offered much hope. 

In a bid to fight the tide, following the departures of Mario Gotze and then Robert Lewandowski, the club spent untold fortunes on players like Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Ciro Immobile, Adrian Ramos as well as the return of Shinji Kagawa.

A club that had built its success around Klopp's ability to nurture youth players into the first team and work off their natural hunger for success was now spending fortunes on stop-gaps in a desperate bid to hold on to their second-place status within German football. 

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

A bitter pill that many Dortmund fans had to recently swallow was the news that young talent Jonas Hofmann would leave the club this season to join Mainz on loan. Although there's no suggestion the 22-year-old winger may have changed much of what has happened this season, it represented a departure from the ethos that made Klopp's Dortmund great.

Add to Hofmann's situation the sale of other young talents Leonardo Bittencourt, Moritz Leitner and Koray Gunter, who never managed to get a chance in the first team before being shipped off, and you have a club that's almost unrecognisable from the one Klopp arrived at in the summer of 2008. 

Such troubles across the club undoubtedly suggest a real need to start again.

A fresh renewal from the anguish that has festered in every crevice of Dortmund over the past few seasons is perhaps the only option the former German champions have. Out with the old and in with the new. Even if the old is Jurgen Klopp.

Tuchel, or whoever may take the Dortmund post, can now come in this summer and wipe the slate clean. Troubled stars, failing transfer policies and outdated tactics can all be flushed out without any disrespect to the hard work that went into taking the club to this point.

Dortmund needs a new start, and as such the departure of Klopp may be the best move this club and the much-loved manager have made in years. 

@Sbienkowski