Borussia Dortmund's Biggest Regret of the 2014/15 Bundesliga Season

Considering the manner of Borussia Dortmund's dramatic fall from grace and then spectacular re-emergence at the concluding stage of this season's German Bundesliga, it's quite easy to forget the club itself has underperformed spectacularly over the past eight months. 

The famous Black and Yellows were German champions just three years ago, yet now they sit seventh in the German top division, with a final Europa League spot keeping their name loosely applied to the top tier of European football.

Dortmund, in almost every sense, have gone backwards since their last Bundesliga trophy. And as such, a certain amount of regret remains attached to this club despite their DFB cup final on Saturday. 

Yet rather than focussing on any particular poor signing or diminishing first-team talent, the fault in Dortmund lies with an individual who has already decided to leave this summer.

The club's biggest regret this season was not parting ways with Jurgen Klopp last summer. 

This may seem like an odd suggestion. For many fans, the charismatic manager is the living embodiment of Dortmund's recent wave of success and appeal for many across the world, and such quite justifiably rests upon a pedestal that fans and critics alike dare not point at and question. 

But that simply isn't the case anymore. Last summer, when Robert Lewandowski left for Bayern Munich—12 months after Mario Gotze made the very same move—the Bundesliga side desperately needed a complete revamp from top to bottom. 

The old way of doing things at the Westfalenstadion was over. A new strategy should have been put in place, yet instead Klopp soldiered on and, with a bulging transfer budget, dived into the transfer market and looked for solace in talents across the continent. 

The signing of Adrian Ramos and Ciro Immobile look as oddly timed and placed now as they did at the time. Both forwards are perfectly well-talented within their own right, but neither have ever looked like slotting in to Klopp's first team. They were acquisitions that lacked reason, understanding or any real long-term thinking from a manager and backroom staff who looked all out of ideas.

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

Similarly, the departure of Lewandowski should have signalled the end of a Dortmund team that finished 19 points behind Bayern just a few months before.

A new manager with a fresh perspective—such as the incoming Thomas Tuchel—would have instantly seen what now truly held back the former champions in the previous campaign.

Like most fans on the famous yellow wall, a new coach would have quickly determined that players like Marcel Schmelzer, Roman Weidenfeller and Kevin Grosskreutz—all regulars and loyal servants to Klopp's clause through the years—had no place in a team with ambitions such as Dortmund's. 

Even if we were to look beyond any particular individual that Klopp had grown too fond of, we can very quickly pick up on the tactics of his team as a whole and how very little has actually changed since they won their first league championship under the manager in 2012. 

Explanations for Dortmund's rise and fall now number in the thousands but in truth, much of the club's struggles in the past two seasons have been down to the simple fact that the rest of Germany has figured out how to address their uber-pressing style of football. 

Dortmund no longer burst on to the scene in each game like they used to, they don't play a dangerously high line in the hope of tormenting their opponents and they don't throw themselves in waves of attack as they once did.

They don't really do anything. Klopp just simply sets up his side in a typical 4-2-3-1 and allows each player to do his own thing. The tactics or ingenuity in this team have long since been abandoned, and it's hurt them immensely this season.   

Add to that the report that came out this season via Bild (h/t Manchester Evening News), which suggested the manager was denied an opportunity to speak to an unnamed Premier League club last April, and it all becomes a little clearer to consider. 

A manager who himself had probably decided enough was enough was denied the opportunity to pass on his project to another coach and as such, the club have suffered in a season-long purgatory of domestic and European anguish, peppered with the odd victory to remind fans just what used to be. 

Dortmund probably should have let Klopp leave last summer and started anew with another manager a year ahead of schedule.  

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