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Pascal Groß: Particularly valuable all-rounder with his feet on the ground
When Mannheim claims to be an epicentre of sport, it is certainly not an exaggeration. The city, which has 300,000 inhabitants in its population, boasts 22 Bundesliga teams, with Adler Mannheim (ice hockey) and the Rhein-Neckar Löwen (handball) chief among them. Yemisi Ogunleye, a shot put champion at the Olympic Games in Paris, competes for Mannheim. The former captain of Borussia Dortmund, Christian Wörns, was born there, as were Heiko Herrlich, Thomas Schaaf, Hakan Calhanoglu – and Steffi Graf, whose birthplace in the Neckarau district has a plaque commemorating the 22-time Grand Slam winner. If you want to expand upon the list of prominent sporting names from the region, you could also include Lambsheim 21 kilometres away (Jürgen Kohler) or Leimen (26km, Boris Becker). But that is not necessary in the case of Pascal Groß: He was born in Mannheim on 15 June 1991 – and now, after seven years in the southern English coastal city of Brighton, which is only an hour away from London by train, he has changed his place of residence once again. Groß has relocated to Dortmund. His new employer: BVB.
Just as the German Film and Media Rating Board in Wiesbaden (FBW) bestows the rating "valuable" or "particularly valuable" upon high-quality films, Pascal Groß could also be awarded the rating "particularly valuable" in view of his versatility and variability. With the exception of playing in goal, as a centre-forward or a central defender – due to his height of only 1.81m – Groß would probably give a convincing account of himself everywhere else. At Borussia Dortmund, the 33-year-old will probably be in demand as a link-up player in the current campaign, the first holding midfielder in build-up play who moves the ball onto the attacking midfielders or the flanks, who sets his team-mates in motion, who pushes forward in certain situations, who accelerates the play or pops up in shooting positions himself. Glimpses of goal are the rule rather than the exception for Groß, who amassed an impressive 84 scorer points in 261 competitive appearances for Brighton, scoring 32 goals himself and setting up 52.
"I don't care where I play," said Groß, who then went on to add the following with a smile: "Somewhere in the starting XI is ideal." He is "open to every position," he declared, continuing: "I try to do everything in my power to ensure we win." This puts the coach in the enviable position of having a player in the squad who is compatible with everyone, whatever the system of play and tactical orientation. You can imagine Groß playing alongside Marcel Sabitzer, but also partnering Emre Can, Felix Nmecha, Salih Groß and Kjell Wätjen, perhaps even alongside or instead of Julian Brandt in an attacking midfield pivot. Regardless of which system of play Nuri Sahin opts for, he possesses a universal weapon in Groß.
The father of two has an expectation of himself that he must work and fight for the team, "but also make an impact in footballing terms". That fits in with the professional profile – which he has honed over the years – of making a strong combative impact as an absolute mentality player on the one hand and conjuring up creative moments with his composure on the ball, his two-footedness and his footballing intelligence on the other. Nuri Sahin is delighted about the new member of his squad, who can be a strategist and a warrior in equal measure – and who reacted with a degree of disquiet about the fact that the fans at Brighton reluctantly nicknamed him ‘The Kaiser’. Generally speaking the footballer, who spent seven years with the Seagulls, enjoys an extraordinarily high level of popularity and recognition. To mark his departure, the club posted a highlights video entitled: ‘A Brighton Legend’. His former employer eulogised Groß's achievements as "brilliant, absolutely brilliant".
"BVB don't come calling every day"
Groß believes that the fact Nuri Sahin himself was an outstanding central midfield player at a high level could be "extremely helpful" to him. In the initial talks he held with the coach, which preceded the subsequent completion of the transfer, Groß sensed his manager was "very football-crazy". In a way Sahin and Groß, who admits to having an extreme love of football, are brothers in spirit. The phone calls with the coach played a significant role in his decision to move from Brighton to Borussia. "BVB don't come calling every day", he said. The decision to return to Germany then "came relatively quickly. When the request came, my heart immediately said yes. It was an easy decision to accept the offer, even though I had a long and super lovely time in Brighton." Now he has landed at the club he has loved since his childhood. "I've always been a BVB supporter," explained Groß. And as he celebrates his birthday every year in June, his parents didn't have to think much about how to make their son Pascal happy. Every summer, they gifted him a ball and the new Dortmund shirt as a present.
In Groß, BVB have acquired a precision footballer. He was among the top three in terms of passing accuracy in the English Premier League in the 2023/24 season. It was as though an electronic brain calculated the course of his passes in advance. Precisely 2,639 of his passes (or 90.4%) reached their destination. Only Spanish European champion Rodri (3,359), who laces his boots for Manchester City, and Lewis Dunk, the former team-mate and central defensive colleague of the new Dortmund player at Brighton & Hove Albion (2,971), played even more "accurate passes", as they are termed in the Premier League statistics.
To round off Pascal Groß's extremely impressive performance record: In his seven seasons on the English south coast, he amassed a total of 333 "key passes" that resulted in shots on goal, scoring chances, decisive moments or goals. Only Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United/399), Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City/385) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool FC/338) have achieved more in their careers to date. The fact he stands alongside those exceptional players underlines the extraordinary class of the new signing, who was unveiled at the beginning of August. He wears the No. 13 shirt at BVB, which was certainly not perceived as unlucky by previous players such as Raphael Guerreiro, Alex Frei and Karl-Heinz Riedle.
Groß wears the No. 5 for Germany's national team – despite his slightly advancing age, he has only made eight appearances to date. Despite glowing reviews during his time on British shores, his work has gone almost unnoticed by the German public. His club coach Roberto de Zerbi, who has since moved on to Olympique Marseille, was extremely active in putting forward his case to Hansi Flick. Before Groß's international debut in September 2023 against Japan (4-1 defeat), the former national team coach confessed: "I had a long chat with de Zerbi. He told me about Pascal's great tactical abilities."
Praise from the national team coach for Groß
Just as it took time for his career to really take off at club level, he also had to be patient when it came to the DFB: Groß made his debut for the national team at the age of 32 years and 86 days. Only two players this century have been older when they first appeared for the Germany national team: Martin Max in 2002 (33/253) and Roman Weidenfeller in 2013 (33/105). Julian Nagelsmann seems to have taken a liking to the late starter and has called him up again for the upcoming Nations League matches. "Pascal is an outstandingly good player, who has flown under the radar for far too long given what he can do." In any case, Nagelsmann announced this spring that he again wanted to have more players in the squad "like Pascal Groß who also put themselves on the line for others and who are less interested in shining with a great pass."
Accordingly, there was great delight at BVB over the summer break at the prospect of signing Pascal Groß and giving him a contract until 2026. "He gives our team new dimensions with his outstanding passing and positional play and his versatility," emphasised sporting director Sebastian Kehl, who went on to add: "But Pascal is also a sly operator and poses a direct and indirect goal threat in many areas. We're convinced of the fact that he will enhance our play and strengthen us with his will to win and his personality." Managing director for sport Lars Ricken expressed similarly high expectations over the summer break, categorising Groß as an "absolute key player" and saying: "He will make us more stable and more flexible, help us with his experience and have a positive impact as a senior player." Pascal Groß trains hard and seriously to this end, "always pushing himself to get better," as he revealed in an interview with BVB TV.
This attitude was instilled in him by his father Stephan, who amassed plenty of experience himself during a long professional career at Karlsruher SC. Pascal Groß says his father taught him a lot of training and important values. "I owe everything to him." Even his two-footedness, which Stephan Groß recognised would be a career booster for his son early on. "He told me that he would only train me if I would do the exercises with both feet. Otherwise, he wouldn't," said the son and student. This ability was highly regarded at Hoffenheim (U17s, U19s, Hoffenheim II), Karlsruhe (one and a half years, 28 games/four goals, two assists) and Ingolstadt (five years, 165 games/17 goals, 40 assists), before he penned a deal with Brighton in 2017.
Short-sleeved or long-sleeved?
He can certainly count total physical fitness among his attributes. Otherwise, he would hardly have managed the especially packed calendar in England. He played 3,114 minutes out of a possible 3,420 throughout the league campaign last season. In other words: Groß more or less always plays. It was 36 appearances in 2023/24 (33 in the starting line-up, substituted on twice and off once), and 37 the year before in a league which has 38 matchdays. "I am used to playing many matches at the very highest level, physically too," Groß told kicker, adding: "And I simply want to try to show my style of play in the Bundesliga too." It is hardly surprising that during his relatively short, only three-week-long summer holidays, Dortmund's marathon man did not take any pictures or videos of relaxing activities in far-flung destinations, instead only posting a short video (not published by himself) of the ‘Töwerland Island Run’ on Juist. Four laps of 2.1 kilometres each, a total distance of 8.4 kilometres, 63 participants in his age group and first place for Groß, who finished 84 seconds ahead of second-placed Dennis Osterfeld.
Groß ran on the East Frisian island in a short-sleeved grey shirt. In a normal scenario, this would not merit any special attention or mentions in a text like this if the footballer in question did not frequently train and play in a long-sleeved jersey or training shirt – and occasionally also in long trousers. Though the heat was sometimes sweltering on the finely prepared pitch at the ‘Ri-Au’ stadium for the pre-season training camp in Bad Ragaz, Groß always turned up in a long-sleeved shirt. He has now revealed the secret of why he takes his own approach when it comes to fashion: "I do it so that my skin isn't quite so stressed. I have a grass allergy."
In Dortmund, Groß wants "to be part of a team that wins a lot of games. The club have high expectations and I have high expectations," he said. "I believe that we can fulfil them." He didn't have any nerves about making the career leap from 11th in the Premier League to a Champions League finalist before the start of the season – if anything, it his vocal abilities that worried him in the run-up. During the training camp in Switzerland, BVB's new signings traditionally contribute to the evening entertainment by singing – and Groß had to "get out of my comfort zone’", as he laughingly reports. In front of team-mates and staff members, he belted out the 24-year-old party hit ‘Hey Baby’ by DJ Ötzi, which has sold more than a million copies. Afterwards, he felt as relieved as he does after scoring a penalty: "Now I've got it behind me and can sleep peacefully again."
Groß believes that he will not have to fundamentally change his footballing approach. On the contrary: Even if both clubs have their own philosophies with differing strengths, he recognises "certain similarities" between Brighton and BVB. The only change for him was training in front of fans, as he has done in Bad Ragaz or at public training sessions in Dortmund, which he didn't have in England. "You then realise the power of the club," he said.
Text: Thomas Hennecke
Photos: Hendrik Deckers