A career is sometimes shaped with the support of an accidental meeting, a welcome departure, or an impromptu opportunity. For Edin Terzic’s trajectory, it’s a cocktail of a bit of all that, sprinkled with relentlessness, emulation, and sometimes nerve, because we must not misjudge the work of the German-Croatian coach. But Terzic is a UFO, and he knows it too well to say otherwise. Ten years ago, when he was only a modest amateur player in the regional division, the native of Menden (North Rhine-Westphalia) could not have imagined taking such a route, finished with a final of Champions League against Real Madrid this evening (9:00 p.m.).
“A lot of people know I’m from the area, I was born 30 kilometers from here. I came to the stadium for the first time when I was nine years old. Since then, I always knew that I had this team in my heart, but I never thought that I would have such a job here”, he declared during his introductory press conference in 2020. But to study the phenomenon, we have to rewind the last fourteen years. In 2010, then aged 28, the young Terzic had ambitions other than that of stacking goals with BV Cloppenburg, a small club located in the town of Iserbohn. He does it brilliantly, but decides to stop when the opportunity to join his favorite club, Dortmund, as a U19 recruiter, presents itself to him. He knows the sharp turn that awaits him by seizing this opportunity, but clinging to his ideas, he is promoted, first as assistant coach to Hannes Wolf in the U19s, then from the reserves, in 2011.
His duet with Slaven Bilić, an important turning point
But the big turning point in his career was this stage as assistant to Slaven Bilić, of Yugoslav origin like him, first on the bench of Besiktas in 2013, then of West Ham in the Premier League, in 2015. According to the german magazine Schwatzgelb, the Croatian had at the time already identified the potential of his younger brother, which led him to consult Dortmund to release him. Request accepted by Michael Zorc, sports director at the time and well aware of the opportunity presented to his man. It was finally in the summer of 2018, six months after the dismissal of Bilic and his staff at West Ham, that Terzic returned to the Ruhr, and this time, with a new status. Lucien Favre made him his deputy among the professionals, but was fired in December 2020 after a humiliation suffered against Stuttgart (5-1).
Names are emerging, like that of Marco Rose, but Dortmund ultimately trusts Terzic to act as interim manager until the end of the season. Results: qualification for the Champions League. Once expected to stay, the German-Croatian was finally replaced by Marco Rose the following summer, and found himself technical director of the club. A break of a year and a half since he was once again appointed to replace Rose after his dismissal, in May 2022. Since then, Terzic has been able to build a reputation. If he is not always unanimous among supporters, some of whom had called for his dismissal when Dortmund was slipping out of the top 4 this season, the technician was able to take refuge in work and lead, against all odds, his club in Champions League final. Tonight, he could make history.
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