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Official farewell for Edin Terzic at season opening event
The eyes of every Black & Yellow are firmly focused on the start of the Bundesliga season against Eintracht Frankfurt on 24 August. BVB's squad is finalised, the preparations are as good as done and the direction of travel has been set. But prior to kick-off in the final pre-season friendly against Aston Villa at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK on Saturday afternoon, a glance was cast back at the past once again.
"A coach who embodied and still continues to embody the values of Borussia Dortmund like almost no other." Those were the fitting words of stadium announcer Nobby Dickel several minutes before kick-off in the Villa game. Terzic, who was presented with a bouquet of flowers and small mementos of his successful spell at BVB by Hans-Joachim Watzke, the Chairman of the Management Board, was bidden farewell by his "old love" – naturally in the form of thunderous applause and chants of "Dortmund boy".
In recent years, the 41-year-old Terzic has regularly stood in the spot where he was bidden farewell on Saturday. As a coach, who celebrated emotional successes but also had to contend with tough defeats. As a person, who overcame new challenges and situations time after time. But above all as a Borusse.
Terzic, who once followed BVB matches from the South Stand as a fan, officially became part of the club in 2010 when he became assistant coach of the U19s under Hannes Wolf. Together with his former fellow student, he took over the Black & Yellow U23s at the start of 2011. Wolf and Terzic coached the BVB U17s from the start of the 2011/12 season.
After his first spell at Borussia Dortmund, Terzic moved to the Turkish Süper Lig with Besiktas in 2013 before joining West Ham United in the English Premier League in 2015. At both overseas stints, he worked as an assistant coach to Slaven Bilic. He returned to BVB in 2018, this time as an assistant coach to Lucien Favre. Terzic took over as the head coach for the first time in December 2020 and led the club to victory in the DFB-Pokal in 2021.
After a year as technical director, in which Terzic worked on squad planning and – as he himself put it – served "as the assistant coach to Michael Zorc and Sebastian Kehl", he was once again appointed as the head coach of Borussia Dortmund for the 2022/23 season and narrowly missed out on the Bundesliga title at the end of the campaign. The 41-year-old experienced another highlight of his coaching career with the Black & Yellows when he reached the Champions League final on 1 June 2024, in which he and his team narrowly missed out on the European crown to Real Madrid. Shortly after the match, Terzic asked for his contract to be terminated prematurely and BVB agreed.
Terzic returned to the pitch at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK on Saturday and was thanked by the Black & Yellows for all the shared moments and memories he has given the fans, the club and himself. "We experienced a lot together. It was great fun to work on achieving our objectives alongside Edin. Our successes in recent years will always be associated with him," declared sporting director Sebastian Kehl in June. "Edin is a Borusse through and through, a great, very authentic person and he has always been 100% committed to BVB." And that is precisely why Edin Terzic will be turning his attentions back to the start of the season following the official farewell, just like every other Borusse.