Why This Transfer Season Might Just Be the Best in Years

Okay, I know I might be jumping the gun a little bit. The summer transfer season has barely begun and Borussia Dortmund have already made five new exciting signings.

Okay, we lost Mats Hummels and İlkay Gündoğan. They were both important players in the team, and their roles need to be filled. But we have signed so many promising new players, it'll take a very jaded person to find something to complain about.

Buying, Selling and Coming Out Ahead

So far, we have:

• Mikel Merino from CA Osasuna for 3.75 million Euros
• Ousmane Dembélé from FC Stade Rennes for 15 million Euros
• Marc Bartra from FC Barcelona for 8 million Euros
• Sebastian Rode from FC Bayern for 14 million Euros
• Emre Mor from FC Nordsjaelland for 7 million Euros

As well as the return of Jakub "Kuba" Blaszczykowski from his loan at ACF Fiorentina.

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These transfers have barely made a dent in the 38 million Euros we got for Hummels from Bayern Munich and the 26 million Euros we got for Gündoğan from Manchester City.

We also have leftover funds from the last transfer season. Between Gonzalo Castro, Roman Bürki, Joo-Ho Park and Julian Weigl, we only spent around 20 million Euros; while the sale of Kevin Kampl, Ciro Immobile, Jonas Hofmann, Mitch Langerak and others totaled about 43 million Euros.

Five promising players and we still have around 40 million Euros left in the bank? Good business!

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Reports are the Dembélé deal in particular really helped by Puma, with BVB only paying 8.5 million of the total fees.

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Good Scouting

Merino, Dembélé and Mor are all U19 talents. Plenty of other clubs were showing interest (including the usual Premier League suspects), but we got there first. Dembélé in particular has said he picked Dortmund because we've been scouting him for a while and because of our great youth team.

This isn't a new trend. Last year we bought a skinny little defensive midfielder from 1860 Munich called Julian Weigl. Before that it was Mats Hummels, İlkay Gündoğan, and some Polish guy called Robert Lewandowski. We're known for finding players with lots of promise and turning them into stars.

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Who Says We Aren't a Top Club?

We're attracting players from clubs like FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich!

I've seen some people try to argue that we're just getting deadweights, but that really isn't true. Bartra's transfer, in particular, was a real steal. Barca initially wanted to extend his contract and loan him out. When that didn't work, they tried to sneak in a buyback clause. But his agent and our management wouldn't stand for that, and we got a young promising Barcelona player for a mere 8 million Euros.

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The Man of the Moment

This is pretty much all due to Michael Zorc - our Sporting Director. Thomas Tuchel might be the master tactician, but Zorc is the master negotiator. His scouting team finds amazing talents, and then he negotiates a brilliant agreement that blows us all away.

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Between Aki Watzke's leadership, TT's planning, and Zorc's handling, we have a brilliantly run club that just knocked it out of the park this transfer season!

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