Record figures and a record start

Germany's football capital was feverishly anticipating the start of the new season. 76 days after the final home game of the 2016/17 campaign against Werder Bremen, the Strobelallee turned black and yellow once again as 50,000 visitors attended the season opening ceremony. The next day, DFB Cup winners Borussia Dortmund were narrowly and unluckily beaten by German champions Bayern Munich in the Super Cup final. Having led twice through Christian Pulisic and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Borussia were twice pegged back and the match went to penalties. Roman Bürki initially gave BVB the upper hand in the shootout by saving from Joshua Kimmich, but Sebastian Rode and Marc Bartra were both denied by Sven Ulreich.

Not long afterwards, Ousmane Dembélé failed to show up for training without explanation. It developed into a transfer saga in which Hans-Joachim Watzke and Michael Zorc adopted a tough and consistent line – and in the end their demands were granted. With six days of the transfer window remaining, an agreement in principle was reached with FC Barcelona, who would pay a fixed transfer fee of EUR 105 million to secure the player's services. In addition, a payment of variable add-on fees totalling a maximum of 40 percent of the fixed transfer fee was agreed.

It marked the start of a frantic final few days in the transfer market, with Ukraine and Dynamo Kiev forward Andrey Yarmolenko joining Borussia Dortmund on a deal until 30 June 2021. "Andrey is a player we've been following for some time, one who plays football at the highest level both for his club and as a player for the Ukrainian national team," explained Zorc, who allowed Emre Mor to complete a permanent switch to Newcastle United and Felix Passlack to join TSG Hoffenheim on an initial two-year loan. In return, the Black & Yellows signed Jeremy Toljan, a full-back equally comfortable on either flank, from the Sinsheim outfit. And in 17-year-old English youngster Jadon Sancho, Zorc pulled off a coup by signing one of Europe's hottest properties.

The Sporting Director might have been kept busy with transfers, but he had little reason to be concerned by his team's form. In the 75th edition of the DFB Cup, the reigning champions kicked off their title defence with a 4-0 (2-0) victory over 1. FC Rieslasingen-Arlen. Marc Bartra opened the scoring against the fifth-tier outfit, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scoring a hat-trick. Jan-Niklas Beste made his professional debut.

BVB kicked off the 55th Bundesliga season with a 3-0 win at VfL Wolfsburg that sent them straight to the summit. A sell-out crowd in Lower Saxony saw Christian Pulisic fire the Westphalians ahead on 22 minutes, before Marc Bartra doubled the lead with an arrowed shot into the top corner five minutes later and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang added the third and final goal on the hour mark. It was followed by a comfortable 2-0 home victory over Hertha BSC. Nuri Sahin set up Aubameyang for a technically sublime opening goal after a quarter of an hour, with Sahin himself adding the second with a spectacular left-footed effort in the 57th minute. But Peter Bosz had a warning for his side. "Especially when we're in possession, we need to move the ball around more quickly and switch sides more quickly when we're facing such a compact opponent," he said.

The board of management reported a new record turnover of EUR 405.7 million. "We've broken through our revenue sound barrier. We'd originally planned to do so only in 2019," explained Hans-Joachim Watzke. "From 2011 to 2017, we've achieved an overall profit after tax of around EUR 134 million, and as such we're one of the most profitable companies in Europe." The Chief Executive Officer conservatively estimated BVB's value to be "upwards of EUR 1 billion". 

In addition, the club welcomed its 150,000th member! There are now only three clubs in the entire world with a greater number of members.
Boris Rupert