The Daily Bee: BVB President Reinhard Rauball Thinks Bayern Munich Comparison is Unfair

Good morning everyone! Welcome back to the work week. I hope you enjoyed your Christmas and/or Boxing Day, if you celebrated them. I know Erling Haaland did:

I will say, I feel like that’s a very underwhelming tree for Haaland. Given his record as a lumberjack, I would have expected a full-size Norway Spruce, but nevertheless, I suppose it’s a nice picture.

BVB President on the first half, expectations

The president of Borussia Dortmund, Reinhard Rauball, tends to stay a bit out of public eye, with CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke and Sporting Director Michael Zorc tending to occupy most of the spotlight and cover most of the sporting aspects of the club. However, Rauball did give a few comments in a recent interview that might raise some eyebrows.

Apparently, Rauball is frustrated with the constant comparisons between BVB and Bayern Munich. While BVB are traditionally considered the club most likely to challenge Bayern, he thinks that because of the financial disparity between the clubs, the constant comparison is unfair:

Maybe we endured for too long without contradiction that we were constantly being measured by our relationship with Bayern Munich. That does not do justice to Borussia Dortmund and in any case makes little sense in view of the different economic conditions. Everyone should break away from this exclusive view of Bavaria.

On BVB’s goals for the season, Rauball made it clear that making it back to the Champions League is very important:

Our goal was and is to qualify for the Champions League. This is extremely important from an economic point of view, especially because of the effects of the pandemic. We are on the right track here.

On the topic of the Europa League, Rauball was hesitant to look forward to the final, stressing that BVB would first have to beat Rangers FC:

Ticking off the Champions League completely in your head now, that will be important. And we shouldn’t make the mistake of looking straight ahead to the possible final in the Europa League. We should concentrate on the next game, the clash with the Glasgow Rangers.

Given BVB’s inability to beat Sporting Lisbon, they should definitely not take a match against Rangers for granted.

Happy Boxing Day

Because of the holiday break, there was very little else in terms of Bundesliga transfer news. There was, however, some exciting action in the English Premier League on Boxing Day, with Leicester City falling just shy of a four goal comeback against Manchester City, and Paul’s favorites Southampton winning a barn-burner against West Ham.

The Daily Buzz

What was your favorite Christmas gift?