BREAKING: Borussia Dortmund Sack Lucien Favre

Well, it took a 5-1 defeat at home to a newly-promoted Stuttgart to do it, but BILD and multiple sources report that Borussia Dortmund has sacked Lucien Favre. According to BILD, the team will be informed about this decision at today’s afternoon training session.

The club has confirmed Lucien Favre’s departure on social media:

Lucien Favre is no longer coach of Borussia Dortmund. After the 1:5 defeat at #BVBVFB, the decision-makers at BVB unanimously agreed to dismiss Favre and his assistant coach Manfred Stefes effective immediately.

Assistant coach Edin Terzic will take over managerial duties for Tuesday’s match against Werder Bremen, according to BILD, and could see out the remainder of the 2020/21 season. Terzic previously managed the squad for a match against Hoffenheim in 2019, in which Dortmund squandered a 3-0 lead and finished with a frustrating 3-3 draw at home.

Favre took over the squad in May 2018 after Dortmund limped to a fourth-place finish under Peter Bosz and Peter Stöger. The squad immediately improved following important signings Axel Witsel, Abdou Diallo, and Achraf Hakimi and Paco Alcácer on loan, but the team stumbled down the stretch of that season to finish second. In all honesty, they should have won the Bundesliga that year after Bayern Munich had an absolutely terrible year under Niko Kovac, yet a rough stretch in February and a brutal two results against Schalke (2-4 defeat) and Werder Bremen (2-2 draw) saw Dortmund finish second yet again to the Bavarians.

After bringing in talented players such as Julian Brandt and Thorgan Hazard and re-signing Mats Hummels from Bayern, Dortmund struggled again in the early stages of the 2019/20 season, going stretches in the Hinrunde without a win. In fact, it was rumored that Favre needed a result against Paderborn on November 22 to save his job after an embarrassing 4-0 defeat in Munich to Bayern, and Dortmund came back in wild fashion for a 3-3 draw. Dortmund rebounded last year as Favre guided the squad to another second-place finish with one of the best defenses in Germany following the COVID restart. That year also saw the club sign some Norwegian guy named Erling Haaland in January, and he did pretty OK as the main central forward.

Many people believed that unless Dortmund won a major trophy this season, Favre’s contract would not be renewed past this season. The club has always been competitive in the league under Favre, but they struggled in Champions League and DFB-Pokal. If there was ever a season for Dortmund to earn at least one trophy, it was definitely this one. Unfortunately, a rough period saw Dortmund earn only four points in five Bundesliga matches after Haaland suffered a hamstring injury that would sideline him for the remainder of the calendar year, dropping them to fifth in the league. During that time, BVB were unable to overcome the loss of their star striker and looked clueless in attack. Saturday’s heavy 5-1 defeat, in which the club only managed four shots on target and were completely lacking in creativity and passion, proved to be the nail in the proverbial coffin for Favre at Dortmund.

This has to be one of the most attractive positions in all of football, as Dortmund possess some of the top attacking talents in Germany plus a decent defensive side. It’s unclear what kind of manager Dortmund will look to bring in, but some of the names that have been thrown around by the media as potential successors include Borussia Monchengladbach’s Marco Rose, Jesse Marsch of RB Salzburg, and former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino.

Thanks for the memories, Lucien. Good luck with whatever team you manage in the future.