"Peter Stöger has completely altered the mood at Dortmund", said Michael Zorc during the broadcast of Wontorra – the Football Talk on Sky: "He has also made the right adjustments to the team." The Sporting Director commented on matters regarding BVB during the panel discussion.

"When you have to dismiss a manager in the first half of the season after having appointed him during the summer, you can not adopt the position that every decision made was 100% correct", clarified Zorc. Nonetheless, he pointed out the fact that "since 2008, only Freiburg have had fewer managers under contract than Borussia Dortmund."

"In the beginning we had the feeling that the methods being imparted would take hold and we were playing attractive football", according to Zorc regarding the season's progression, which initially saw Borussia Dortmund take 19 points from seven games to go top of the table. In "an attempt to explain" why only three points were subsequently collected from the following eight matches, Zorc opined that the loss against Leipzig caused "the belief in what we were doing" to go astray. "Any criticism levelled at the team, though, should take into account that we have had eight players out long-term due to injury. When evaluating what happened, that should not be forgotten."  

Since Tuesday, BVB have got back to winning ways. The 2-0 win away at FSV Mainz was followed yesterday evening by a last-minute victory over TSG Hoffenheim. "To be honest, you have got to say that we landed a boxer's lucky punch for the 2-1, but we were only too glad to have done so", acknowledged the Sporting Director: "However, we still have a number of problems that we need to remedy."

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Zorc also spoke in detail about the challenges of the future. He offered the following with regard to squad planning: "Beforehand we had a retention time of around five years. Players who had not yet reached the highpoint of their careers made their next steps with us." These days it is more difficult "to gradually build a team and keep it together", since emerging star players attract the big clubs' attention at ever younger ages: "We never thought that we would want to sell Dembélé on after one year, or even that we would have to sell him." (br)