Do Borussia Dortmund Need Both Mario Gotze and Andre Schurrle?
The numbers behind Borussia Dortmund's busy transfer dealings are staggering. The Black and Yellows have sold three and signed six players already, moving a grand total of €164 million on the market, per Transfermarkt.
As those numbers would suggest, one can argue the Ruhr side got deeper over the last few weeks. More couldn't be expected of last season's runners-up in the Bundesliga, seeing as they lost key figures in Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gundogan and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
Essentially, the captain, the most important player in head coach Thomas Tuchel's system and the club's best player left. No club in the world could absorb those losses, at least not right away. Not even Real Madrid could cope with departures from Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric and Cristiano Ronaldo in one transfer window.
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"A lot of things happened," Tuchel said in a press conference earlier in July. "Some say it's an upheaval, and maybe it even feels like a new beginning. We lost three extremely important players in Mats, Illy and Micki. They are more than just transfers."
Replacing these players is a mammoth task, one that even the astronomical fees—all three had contracts expiring in 2017, remember—don't make much easier.
Dortmund have so far opted not to reinvest the money in ready-made replacements: "We should not hang on to what we had but we have to let go and create something new," Tuchel told the assembled media. "We will not be able to replace them like-for-like."
Indeed, the club has added talented youngsters who could one day fill important roles, but they don't have the star power or the experience at the top level of the men whose shoes they'd be asked to fill if the season started tomorrow.
Marc Bartra left FC Barcelona because he didn't get much playing time in recent years, so it'd be daft to expect him to play on Hummels' level early on. Sebastian Rode also hardly played at Bayern Munich and is a different kind of midfielder to Gundogan—more physical and aggressive and far less strategic.
Mikel Merino was one of the top players in the Segunda Division for Osasuna, but having only turned 20 in late June, he's a long-term project, and it remains to be seen which position he'll fit in best. Turkey international starlet Emre Mor falls in the same category.
Turning 19 on Sunday, the versatile attacker only has 13 matches in the Danish Superliga under his belt. Granted, those were enough to make the Euro 2016 squad—and Mor looked promising in France—but he might have the biggest adjustment to go through coming to the Bundesliga of all the new arrivals.
Ousmane Dembele has a little more experience and can be expected to take on a bigger role right away following a strong debut season for Stade Rennais. Early returns in the first few pre-season matches have been promising.
Raphael Guerreiro will arrive at Dortmund a freshly crowned European champion. His strong showings at Euro 2016 earned him a spot in the official Team of the Tournament, per UEFA.com, and the club can only be praised for scooping the 22-year-old up for a modest €12 million, per Transfermarkt, prior to his breakout performances.
He, Rode and Dembele look like the best bets to have an impact in the coming months, but they'd hardly be enough to compensate for the major losses the club has suffered.
With these six additions and three sales, Dortmund have already done more business than they usually would in a summer. But they're not done yet, as chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said in a press conference in the club's first pre-season training camp in Austria.
Many names have swirled around, but two candidates have emerged as clear front-runners: Mario Gotze and Andre Schurrle. Both Germany internationals are set to join the club, according to Sebastian Kolsberger of tabloid Bild.
Bayern chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge confirmed talks between the two clubs about Gotze's sensational prospective return to his boyhood club on Saturday.
It would be one of the most controversial transfers in Dortmund's history, seeing as a large contingent of fans voiced their disapproval of a return from the 24-year-old in May, unfurling a banner on the famous south stand that read, per Stefan Buczko of ESPN FC: "Milan or Madrid—just not Dortmund. Piss off Gotze!"
From a pure sporting perspective, signing Gotze would make sense. While not a central midfielder per se, he could help ease the loss of Gundogan thanks to his technical abilities, as well as his passing and counter-pressing qualities.
More than anything, he'd also be a logical Mkhitaryan replacement. The Armenian played his best season for Dortmund under Tuchel last term, enjoying a relatively free role offensively, his intelligent movement and keen sense for timing and situations allowing him to combine with team-mates anywhere in the final third.
At his best, Gotze can do the same things. Of course, he hasn't been at his best in a while, with numerous injuries arguably the biggest factor behind his failure under Pep Guardiola. The 24-year-old struggled immensely at the Euros as well, showing he'd be a reclamation project for the Black and Yellows.
Familiarity with the surroundings could help him get back on track. That is also one of the key factors to consider in the potential Schurrle deal, albeit on a personal level.
It was under Tuchel that the Wolfsburg man broke through at the senior level at Mainz 05 seven years ago. Big-money moves to Bayer Leverkusen, Chelsea and the club from Lower Saxony followed, but he's never been able to recreate the magic of the early days under his mentor.
Schurrle seems like an odd fit for Dortmund, especially for a fee north of €30 million. The 25-year-old has almost exclusively played on the left wing in his career, which is also Marco Reus' preferred spot.
The attacker's best qualities make him a perfect fit for a counter-attacking team, but the Black and Yellows rarely get to do that these days. In the Bundesliga, where they have the majority of the ball in most games, Schurrle might struggle. Even Reus, a similar but simply better player, didn't look great at times last season.
Reus' injury-proneness, however, is important to consider. Even though Dortmund announced on their official website that Reus' rehabilitation from his latest injury, which cost him an appearance at the Euros, is going as planned, the club can't rely on his fitness for an entire season.
They've got a number of intriguing options in their squad—Dembele, Mor and the 17-year-old Christian Pulisic come to mind, while others, such as Gonzalo Castro, could help out on the wings as well—but it could be considered naive to enter a season that'll include Champions League football without more cover for Reus.
"The path we're heading down is a risky one," Tuchel said about the club's decision to replace established stars with intriguing youngsters, per Buczko. "But risk gets rewarded."
Signing Gotze and Schurrle would seem like a renunciation of that strategy, to a degree at least. The former remains a once-in-a-generation talent, while the latter could be described as a player with a high floor but a low ceiling.
If they both join Dortmund, it's going to be interesting to see how Tuchel will manage his squad. The young players need playing time to develop, but so too does Gotze to get back to his former self. Schurrle, meanwhile, is likely going to be the club's record signing and would thus seem like an automatic starter on paper.
One could argue one of the two would suffice. Gotze could fill a number of roles in the squad and even play on the wing for Dortmund, unlike at Bayern, because full-backs provide the width in Tuchel's system and wingers are allowed and even asked to drift into the middle early and often.
Schurrle, on the other hand, seems like a luxury transfer, a €30 million acquisition who wouldn't improve your starting XI if everyone is healthy.
The Black and Yellows might be better off reigniting their interest in Leverkusen defender Omer Toprak, who made clear he wants to move to Dortmund this summer, per local paper Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger. The 26-year-old would be more of a sure thing in terms of a Hummels replacement than Bartra because of his qualities on the pitch and as a leader.
Of course, it's not out of the question Toprak could join Dortmund on top of Gotze and Schurrle. In this unpredictable summer, nothing seems impossible.
Lars Pollmann also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
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