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On Lars Ricken’s 50th Birthday: Talent, Goals, Titles, and Loyalty to our club
When Lars Ricken transferred from TSC Eintracht to BVB during the 1990 World Cup summer—Andreas Brehme scored “our” winning goal in Rome to clinch the title—the high school student had just celebrated his 14th birthday. Born in Eving and raised as a Black and Yellow fan from childhood, his career could hardly have been more straightforward: talent, goals, titles—and loyalty to the club.
At the age of seventeen, he was promoted to the professional squad in 1993, earned a reputation as the man for the big goals—for example, with his 3–1 goal in the UEFA Cup match on St. Nicholas Day in 1994 against Deportivo La Coruña—and celebrated three German championships with BVB as players (1995, 1996, 2002). The midfielder scored his most important goal—out of 69 in 407 professional games in the Black and Yellow jersey—on May 28, 1997, in the UEFA Champions League final against Juventus Turin: his chip shot that sealed the 3–1 victory was later voted the Black and Yellow “Goal of the Century.” In 2002, Ricken finished as runner-up in the World Cup with the German national team.
On July 1, 2008, the Dortmund native was appointed youth development coordinator; on January 1, 2021, he was promoted to director of the youth academy, which he shaped into the most successful in German soccer. Seven of BVB’s 16 total German championships in the A and B youth divisions were won during his tenure. Several hundred young players trained at Borussia Dortmund have made the leap to Germany’s top three leagues or to a top league abroad. And that is why he can say: “I created more value as a youth development coordinator. But the greater emotional value probably lies in my achievements as a player, which peaked in 1997.”
In the summer of 2024, Lars Ricken rose to the top at BVB and, as Managing Director of Sports, has since been responsible for professional soccer, among other things. The father of three is spending his special day with his family—before work on the upcoming season begins next week with the start of the first team’s training camp.
Boris Rupert