Dortmund, youngsters and the meaning of success

[king canary 7,654]

Read this interesting piece today about Dortmund and thought it had some relevance due to the fact we follow a similar type of model (buy young, develop, sell ourselves as a stepping stone/shop window). Particularly interested in this part about the nature of 'success' for clubs in modern football.

"That is, as long as you are prepared to stretch your definition of winning. Since 2012, European football’s “model club” have raked in £378m in sales from players who were signed under the age of 21. On the pitch Dortmund have won a grand total of one cup, reached one Champions League final and finished a cumulative 149 points behind Bayern Munich, who they face in the German Super Cup final on Wednesday.

 

So does the Dortmund model work? Is this just a medium-sized club in a world of giants, doing the best it can, “rolling the stone up the hill each year, like Sisyphus”, as the chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke puts it? Or are they simply a glorified feeder club, a business hustle, a cold production line where everyone is basically passing through?

Perhaps, as they say, it is a bit of both and in a sense these are questions that strike at the fundamentals of the game. What constitutes success? What is a football club actually for? Certainly any objective assessment of the Dortmund model needs to acknowledge not only the prevailing financial landscape but also the science and the romance at work, the brazen optimism of taking a punt on a young, uncut gem and the brazen cynicism of the logic behind it."

[TheGunnShow 5,985]

Put into context that they are up against a Bayern Munich side that is financially in impeccable shape and able to buy practically anyone, whilst RB Leipzig is also bankrolled by the Red Bull drinks company, Hoffenheim has a billionaire on the board in the form of Dietmar Hopp, who founded SAP. The chemical company Bayer is behind Leverkusen, VW is behind Wolfsburg... Dortmund have consistently been right at the sharp end of competition in Germany whilst obvious rivals such as Schalke have fallen away due to poor financial management.

Let's transfer that to England. Chelsea have Abramovich, Liverpool have Fenway, Man Utd have the Glazers, Arsenal have billions but seemingly don't spend it so much, Leicester have a Thai fat cat (a very good one, to be fair) supporting them and many more have wealthy backers.

This model, when well implemented, works very well but requires consistent emphasis on finding / nurturing youth talent. Departing from it is probably the bigger problem. Auxerre is a particular case in point as they fell apart very quickly after Guy Roux left so that was probably a matter of poor succession planning. They punched far above their weight for a good two decades.

The most telling point is this: Of course these are just the successes. But even the relative failures show up in green on the balance sheet. The much-hyped Danish prodigy Jacob Bruun Larsen was sold to Hoffenheim for £8m. The defender Matthias Ginter never quite kicked on but still turned a 70% profit when he left for Borussia Mönchengladbach. The “Turkish Messi” Emre Mor was signed for £9m, lasted one disastrous season, and yet still sold to Celta Vigo for £12m.

We sold Marley Watkins for over a million, and made our money back on Srbeny. And how much did we spend on upgrading the facilities? Five million?? Bargain. And sustainable.

Edited September 30, 2020 by TheGunnShow

[king canary 7,654]

5 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Put into context that they are up against a Bayern Munich side that is financially in impeccable shape and able to buy practically anyone, whilst RB Leipzig is also bankrolled by the Red Bull drinks company, Hoffenheim has a billionaire on the board in the form of Dietmar Hopp, who founded SAP. The chemical company Bayer is behind Leverkusen, VW is behind Wolfsburg... Dortmund have consistently been right at the sharp end of competition in Germany whilst obvious rivals such as Schalke have fallen away due to poor financial management.

Yeah I agree.

I guess the part I'm grappling with with us is the more existential (sorry for being pretentious) idea of what success looks like for football clubs in the 21st century.

It used to obviously be trophies. Now though, with finances so skewed, that doesn't really work- we all know Norwich City have a basically zero % chance of winning the Premier League without a very sudden change in finances. So how do we celebrate success? Is it being a financially stable club who can punch above its weight? Is buying a player young and selling him for substation profit in a couple of years a success? Or is it all part of wider end goal to become something more?

[BigFish 1,988]

I saw this before, asks some interesting questions of our club around what success means and what the project is. It says Dortmund player turnover is 50% every season. One to remember if we sell more of the crown jewels.

[Nuff Said 5,161]

Surely, in the next five years, it’s promotion to the PL and staying there, reinvesting the money earned into more than just the wages of a few marquee signings? That is, improving the academy and other infrastructure and expanding the ground.

[TheGunnShow 5,985]

There's another obvious German example, but they're not really known for youth work and developing players and more renowned for being a veritable counterculture compared to the corporate nature of professional football nowadays, and that is St. Pauli. I think Norwich could pull that off pretty well and also combine it with their improving youth work to good effect.

[Nuff Said 5,161]

Longer-term (and I’m trying to avoid the words “established Premier League club”) it’s slowly rising up the table each year, and a cup win? I can’t see that more than this ever unless Warren Buffett buys us and FFP is relaxed.

[king canary 7,654]

10 minutes ago, BigFish said:

I saw this before, asks some interesting questions of our club around what success means and what the project is. It says Dortmund player turnover is 50% every season. One to remember if we sell more of the crown jewels.

It is one of those things where the scouting/management team obviously deserve huge praise- it is a success in itself to keep finishing second when the turnover is so huge.

[lake district canary 4,542]

Success is different for different people, depending on their point of view, so no-one can say their view of what is successful is better than anyone else's. 

Dreams of being at the top of the PL, or Champions league football is just that - a dream - and while it could happen and would represent a huge success for our club, it is not the main measure of success - in fact that success, if it ever happened, would be as a result of success further down the line - like the success of the last three years and the way the club is being run at the moment and it's gradual building of resources and young players, following the Dortmund model quite closely.  You can point to the relegation and say that was unsuccessful, but in the broader term of the word success.....the bigger picture, if you like.....the club is on a good track, building the resources, developing players and selling them on, some tremendous success on the pitch over the three years...and with the hope of doing well and getting promoted again - and if that happened, a better chance of staying in the PL next time.

What stands out for me is the people who never seem to accept that we are a successful club. It seems as if for some, the only measure of success is having loads of money so we can buy lots of expensive players, but as I said, success can be measured in different ways.  Dortmund have been outstanding on and off the field - and while their success in the league may not be as great as some would like, I bet the vast majority of their fans think their club is a shining light of how to be successful - and on a budget.  Lets hope the similar way we are doing things can emulate their success. I don't see why not - although in the present ecenario, lack of fans is a real issue for us, as fans and togetherness are an integral part of the Dortmund - and our - way.  Interesting times, but if any club can do well in the present circumstances, we can....because we have a successful set up.

[TheGunnShow 5,985]

15 minutes ago, king canary said:

It is one of those things where the scouting/management team obviously deserve huge praise- it is a success in itself to keep finishing second when the turnover is so huge.

Above all, the youth coaching and preparation of youngsters so that they are ready to make an impact when they are being picked for the first team.

And now it should be absolutely crystal clear why Webber picked Wagner for Huddersfield and Farke for Norwich. Readying young talent for higher tasks was exactly their remit and I can't recall a Norwich manager who's done so well with youth talent as Farke has in terms of developing them in the confines of a first-team squad and improving their games. I mentioned Auxerre as a fine example of a club that departed from a path due to poor succession planning after Roux went, and to a far lesser extent you could also argue Huddersfield too (although Wagner never had the chance to establish an epoch like Roux did, so the comparison is not overly water-tight, just more a warning to more critical fans that what you wish for may actually be very counter-productive).

[Rabbit hole 31]

We’ll never win the premier league working to this model

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,139]

Yeah, it all depends on what your definition of success is. My big hope for NCFC is that one day we win the FA cup or qualify for Europe, extremely unrealistic and I don't hold the club to that standard but it's my dream. Realistically though I consider success as staying in the PL or getting promoted, I consider competing for promotion in the Championship or a spirited relegation from the PL as fairly average and acceptable and being uncompetitive in the Championship or an embarrassingly poor, abject relegation from the Pl such as the one we just endured as failure. 

 

Nowhere in my definition of success is bringing through young players from our academy to sell on, bringing in fee's or playing expansive football, because personally, I honestly don't care. I take no satisfaction from being a finishing school for players to then move onto medium sized clubs like Leicester or Newcastle. I don't care how much money they bring in and I take no joy from seeing their careers develop at other clubs, I couldn't care less if Maddison turns out for England or Lewis develops into a top player and gets his move to Liverpool. I care about this club and the players who are currently wearing the shirt. 

 

This isn't to say I'm against this current model, because so long as we cannot attract any investment it's the best strategy for our club to succeed. But I just don't like to define our success by how much we sell our academy products for. If we bring in 100m in player sale and those players go on to be stars in the PL but we finish lower mid table I will consider this season to be a failure. 

[GenerationA47 758]

12 minutes ago, Rabbit hole said:

We’ll never win the Bundesliga working to this model

Fixed it for ya 

(Strictly speaking )

[TheGunnShow 5,985]

22 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

Yeah, it all depends on what your definition of success is. My big hope for NCFC is that one day we win the FA cup or qualify for Europe, extremely unrealistic and I don't hold the club to that standard but it's my dream. Realistically though I consider success as staying in the PL or getting promoted, I consider competing for promotion in the Championship or a spirited relegation from the PL as fairly average and acceptable and being uncompetitive in the Championship or an embarrassingly poor, abject relegation from the Pl such as the one we just endured as failure. 

 

Nowhere in my definition of success is bringing through young players from our academy to sell on, bringing in fee's or playing expansive football, because personally, I honestly don't care. I take no satisfaction from being a finishing school for players to then move onto medium sized clubs like Leicester or Newcastle. I don't care how much money they bring in and I take no joy from seeing their careers develop at other clubs, I couldn't care less if Maddison turns out for England or Lewis develops into a top player and gets his move to Liverpool. I care about this club and the players who are currently wearing the shirt. 

 

This isn't to say I'm against this current model, because so long as we cannot attract any investment it's the best strategy for our club to succeed. But I just don't like to define our success by how much we sell our academy products for. If we bring in 100m in player sale and those players go on to be stars in the PL but we finish lower mid table I will consider this season to be a failure. 

Here's the crux, as far as I see it. The original post essentially focuses on the shifting definition of success over time. I highlighted the part in bold as for us, as you've IMO rightly noted, it's the best strategy for us to follow right now, especially as we nearly lost the club twice in the last ten years or so.

If we do attract investment, definitions and expectations may well shift accordingly. Until then though, it's pretty senseless to have Premiership-winning goals on Championship budgets.

[wcorkcanary 4,337]

/ 

[hogesar 9,722]

35 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

Yeah, it all depends on what your definition of success is. My big hope for NCFC is that one day we win the FA cup or qualify for Europe, extremely unrealistic and I don't hold the club to that standard but it's my dream. Realistically though I consider success as staying in the PL or getting promoted, I consider competing for promotion in the Championship or a spirited relegation from the PL as fairly average and acceptable and being uncompetitive in the Championship or an embarrassingly poor, abject relegation from the Pl such as the one we just endured as failure. 

 

Nowhere in my definition of success is bringing through young players from our academy to sell on, bringing in fee's or playing expansive football, because personally, I honestly don't care. I take no satisfaction from being a finishing school for players to then move onto medium sized clubs like Leicester or Newcastle. I don't care how much money they bring in and I take no joy from seeing their careers develop at other clubs, I couldn't care less if Maddison turns out for England or Lewis develops into a top player and gets his move to Liverpool. I care about this club and the players who are currently wearing the shirt. 

 

This isn't to say I'm against this current model, because so long as we cannot attract any investment it's the best strategy for our club to succeed. But I just don't like to define our success by how much we sell our academy products for. If we bring in 100m in player sale and those players go on to be stars in the PL but we finish lower mid table I will consider this season to be a failure. 

Good post, and interesting to see others views on football and supporting Norwich. Don't get me wrong, I disagree with pretty much everything you've said but that kind of show's how support really varies.

For me, especially post-lockdown, my views have changed and over the next 12 months or so I wonder if others will too.

Fundamentally my main requirement is to have a football club to support, long-term. That some mismanaged clubs, as well as some who have done no wrong, may not exist in a years time is concerning and should resonate with the football world.

Secondly, unlike you I absolutely care about expansive football. I miss going to football and I REALLY miss that championship season under Farke. It was one of the most enjoyable in my lifetime. Getting promoted anyway is good, but that's not going to happen all the time. IF we're at least playing decent football I can still enjoy a game in isolation - away from the promotion or relegation battles that may be happening.

Thirdly, I also really care about bringing through young players. Not to sell on or whatever, but maybe this depends on locality too, but having someone like Todd from Dereham, a local lad make it through the academy setup and then shine on the big stage that is the Premier League feels more special to me than buying a 30 year old journeyman from another prem team for £15 million and him getting a few goals and assists.

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,139]

4 hours ago, hogesar said:

Good post, and interesting to see others views on football and supporting Norwich. Don't get me wrong, I disagree with pretty much everything you've said but that kind of show's how support really varies.

For me, especially post-lockdown, my views have changed and over the next 12 months or so I wonder if others will too.

Fundamentally my main requirement is to have a football club to support, long-term. That some mismanaged clubs, as well as some who have done no wrong, may not exist in a years time is concerning and should resonate with the football world.

Secondly, unlike you I absolutely care about expansive football. I miss going to football and I REALLY miss that championship season under Farke. It was one of the most enjoyable in my lifetime. Getting promoted anyway is good, but that's not going to happen all the time. IF we're at least playing decent football I can still enjoy a game in isolation - away from the promotion or relegation battles that may be happening.

Thirdly, I also really care about bringing through young players. Not to sell on or whatever, but maybe this depends on locality too, but having someone like Todd from Dereham, a local lad make it through the academy setup and then shine on the big stage that is the Premier League feels more special to me than buying a 30 year old journeyman from another prem team for £15 million and him getting a few goals and assists.

Interesting and I suspect the vast majority of Norwich fans would hold similar views to you based on my experience.

I agree with your first point 100%, I didn't mention it because I suppose thinking about it a bit I take it for granted somewhat. It's obviously the biggest positive of having the owners and strategy we have meaning we're unlikely to bottom out down the leagues or mis-manage finances to the extreme that our existence is threatened. While that can definitely be called excellent management and stewardship from our owners, I wouldn;t class it as success, even though yes, maybe many including myself do take it for granted. 

 

On your second point, I enjoyed our Championship winning campaign as much as you or anyone else. Watching us sweep aside most teams scoring for fun and having the spirit and guts to overcome challenging games was a joy to behold. However playing neat, passing football that is good on a technical level while not winning most games I find to be incredibly frustrating, as frustrating as if we played awful football ourselves and still lost, unless it's against a top team but those occasions are rare.

If im at Carrow road and we're knocking the ball about nicely without threatening while also looking shaky at the back because of our expansiveness  and then the opposition lump the ball forwards and score on the break I personally feel just as unhappy and frustrated as when we were camped on the edge of our box conceding possession every game like we were under Hughton. I don't enjoy being the unlucky losers, I would prefer we played in such a way that gave us the best chance of success, whatever that may be. Playing our style we have to work so hard to even create clear cut chances and we always look vulnerable, I don't find that enjoyable to watch most of the time. I enjoy watching chances being created, shots on goal and seeing my team press and run hard to try to physically outwork and outfight the opposition, I'm not so much into the patient, passing possession style, but again that's just me, which is why I probably don't class playing good football in the Champs as an outright success. 

 

I take your third point, yeah I would much rather see a Todd Cantwell turning out every game for us than a Steven Naismith. But if I think of my favourite players from the past two decades (likely a very similar list to yours) how many academy products are in there? I didn't love watching Huckerby or Holt any less because they came from Cumbria or Manchester (I assume roughly based on accents) and to be honest the fact that Cantwell comes from Dereham doesn't really influence my opinion either, but if it does for you I'll just agree to disagree there. 

The variation in support and expectations is what makes this board and being a supporter interesting though. No matter what strategy or ownership model the club decided to take there will always be people who are happy, unhappy or usually somewhere in between most of the time. If we were fighting for promotion in L1 I bet a good proportion of our fan base would be pleased, on the flipside if we were midtable every year in the PL large groups of fans would be unhappy and frustrated that we aren't pusing for Europe. So it is what it is. Being a fan is what you make of it. 

Edited September 30, 2020 by Christoph Stiepermann