Transfer Rumor: Maximilian Philipp to Join Dynamo Moscow

Borussia Dortmund winger/forward Maximilian Philipp looks to be on the move as Ruhr Nachrichten reports the German will make a permanent transfer to Dynamo Moscow for a fee of €18 million. The move comes just a day after his agent denied a report that he was transferring to the Russian Premier League outfit.

Philipp arrived to the Westfalenstadion in 2017 from Freiburg for almost €20 million, and he began his time at Dortmund strong by appearing in 20 total matches and tallying six goals and five assists from the left-wing position. Unfortunately, he suffered a severe injury to his kneecap against Leverkusen, and only scored three more goals when he returned three months later.

Philipp played primarily as a center forward in the 2018-2019 season under Lucien Favre and only scored one goal and one assist in the first eight matches before Paco Alcácer pushed him out of the line-up. He would only go on to play in nine more matches, mostly as a second striker, and failed to record a goal or assist in Bundesliga play. He did tally one goal and two assists in five combined Champions League and DFB-Pokal matches, but those were either in garbage time or with rotated squads.

After the emergence of players like Jadon Sancho and Jacob Bruun Larsen and the re-introduction of Raphaël Guerreiro back into the squad, combined with the new signings of Thorgan Hazard and Julian Brandt, it’s as clear as day that Maxi wasn’t going to see much playtime for Dortmund given their glut of depth at the wing positions and his inability to produce when he was played at forward. With failing to play a single minute during BVB’s friendlies in America, and not making the 29-man squad for the training camp in Switzerland, the writing was on the wall for Philipp that he wouldn’t get many – if any – minutes this season.

Should this go through, it will mark the second Dortmund player to make a move to Moscow, as André Schürrle moved on loan to Spartak Moscow. It’ll be interesting to see the two former teammates now playing for bitter rivals.

Only 25 years old, there’s still plenty of time for Philipp to get his career back on track and become the player Zorc described as having “a fantastic future ahead of him.” Good luck in Moscow, Maxi!