Is the Yellow Submarine sinking? The question may seem paradoxical but Borussia Dortmund’s glaring poor form is enough to call into question all the laws of physics. After the defeat against Bayer Leverkusen last Friday (2-3), Nuri Sahin’s troops hoped to make a comeback against the modestly promoted Holstein Kiel, currently 17th in the Bundesliga standings. Even with a lack of confidence and a meeting far from Signal Iduna Park, the Schwarz-Gelben normally had more than enough weapons to take the three points. But ultimately the outcome was much more terrible: in addition to losing the match, Dortmund took a football lesson from the promoted Germans who went so far as to score a fourth goal in the wake of Jann-Fiete Arp (90th+ 8) to initial their victory (4-2), then reduced to ten against eleven after the expulsion of Lewis Holtby (86th). Nothing is going well in Dortmund.
“The first half was not worthy. Professional football is a competitive sport, it’s about playing for 90 minutes and taking responsibility for getting results. We have to work on it. The painting speaks for itself. We have top players with the best qualities. They have all the opportunities, we have a rare and packed coaching staff, we always have more than 80,000 fans in the stadium here on Tuesday evening. Our stadium is full again and we are still receiving support. Unfortunately, we don’t see the desire to truly appreciate and use it. If the players believe they are something special – and I think it is something special to play for Dortmund – then playing games like this is just embarrassing and shameful and also undignified», Explained Lars Ricken, sporting director of BVB, in a press briefing after Tuesday evening’s defeat.
A total crisis
In the last six Bundesliga matches, Dortmund have only won one match. In the calendar year 2025, the Black and Yellow returned from vacation with two losses and conceding 7 goals: “It’s shameful to see our performance here. It’s not worthy of a club like Borussia Dortmund, from the first to the last minute. There is nothing more to say. Neither as a player nor as a coach you have much to say about such a performance. It’s my responsibility. It’s absolutely shameful. It’s way too early after the game to say why the team isn’t implementing it. The question is why we can’t implement it every three days. We have shown time and time again what we can do, but at the moment we don’t know what the outcome will be. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of points“, said Nuri Sahin. Eliminated in the 2nd round of the German Cup, the North Rhine-Westphalia club can at least console themselves with a very good 9th place in the Champions League. But the national fiasco is nevertheless total.
With this new disillusionment against Kiel, Nuri Sahin is starting to be questioned more than ever. The Turkish coach does not hide his share of responsibility in this total drowning of the BVB: “Anyone who is eight points off the Champions League places has no right to talk about the Champions League. Our reality is different. Because I am the coach, I bear full responsibility. It is quite clear that the coach is also being questioned. I can’t apologize. The last person I think of now is myself. I am amazed how we can achieve such a performance. For me, I care about Borussia Dortmund, people who want good for this club and, as a manager, I have not yet managed to let this team play the way I wanted.“, he concluded. By being ranked 9th in the championship, BVB finds itself very far from its standards. To see if Nuri Sahin will be maintained but Dortmund must react very quickly.
