How did Tuchel break up with Dortmund step by step?

Although Dortmund won the German Cup this season - the team's first championship trophy since winning the double five years ago - they were caught in a power struggle with the club's top brass. It was difficult to win the support of some key players in the team, and Thomas Tuchel had no choice but to leave the team.

Lack of trust and failure of communication led to the current irreversible situation.

Before the 2015-16 season, as Klopp’s successor, Tuchel became the coach of Dortmund. Tuchel is a young and passionate coach who is recognized for his achievements in coaching Mainz. After coaching Dortmund, he helped the team get rid of the heaviness of Klopp's last season, guided the team out of a dead end, and led the team to play offensive football.

In Tuchel’s first season coaching Dortmund, the team scored 78 league points and became the league runner-up with the highest points in Bundesliga history. Even so, Dortmund had a chance to narrow the points gap with Bayern in early March, but ended up drawing 0-0 with Bayern at home. In the second leg of the Europa League quarter-finals, Dortmund led Liverpool 3-1 but was reversed 4-3 by their opponents and missed the semi-finals. In the German Cup final, Dortmund lost to Bayern in a penalty shootout and did not score a championship all season.

At this time Tuchel was already well-known in European football, but the relationship between him and the club leadership began to crack. Last summer, Dortmund once again failed to retain key players in the team, trading Mkhitaryan, Gundogan and Hummels to Manchester United, Manchester City and the biggest domestic league rival Bayern respectively.

Tuchel is unhappy. Tuchel hopes to lead the team to compete for the championship in the 2016-17 season. He knows that the three players being traded are the backbone of the team in the 2015-16 season and the team needs them. Dortmund CEO Watzke once promised that the team would not sell all three players. However, they all left, and by selling these three players who were entering the final year of their contracts with the team, Dortmund received more than 100 million euros in funds.

Dortmund decided to strengthen the team's offensive power and continue to cultivate young people while introducing players with certain experience. The club signed eight players, including young players such as Dembélé, as well as Mario Gotze, who returned to Dortmund from Bayern. The total cost of signings exceeded 110 million euros. But Dortmund's signing policy makes people feel a little strange - among the eight new signings signed by the team, none of them can replace Gundogan, who is good at connecting the midfield, or defender Hummels, who is good at organizing offense.

At the same time, team legends Kuba and Subotic, who were beloved by fans but were past their prime, were sent away. However, Subotic, who was troubled by injuries, stayed in Dortmund for 6 more months before leaving.

Tuchel felt that Watzke was unable to buy the players he wanted, such as Leverkusen defender Toprak who has extensive Bundesliga experience. While Tuchel described the team's rebuilding process as "risky", Watzke said the team's rebuilding plan was "ambitious".

From that time on, the relationship between Tuchel and Watzke took a turn for the worse.

Even earlier, in 2016, Tuchel met Sven Mislintat, Dortmund’s chief scout and the man who discovered Lewandowski and Aubameyang. The feud was revealed in January. The pair were said to have had disagreements over whether to bring in Atletico Madrid midfielder Oliver Torres, which resulted in Tuchel banning Mislintat from the team's training grounds. At Dortmund, Mislintat has a close relationship with the club's sporting director Michael Zorc.

Tuchel has cut off his retreat, and the rift with the club's senior management and fans continues to widen. Tuchel lost Mislintat. Within the team, from the moment Tuchel criticized Hummels, who was about to join Bayern, after the 2016 German Cup final, some players began to question him.

Tuchel also lost the support of some influential Dortmund fans. Jan-Henrik Gruszecki, a well-known Dortmund fan and historian, said: "Tuchel has never identified with the club."

In the Champions League group stage last season, Dortmund performed very well, leading all teams participating in the Champions League with 21 goals. But in the Bundesliga, Dortmund was only ranked sixth before Christmas, 12 points and 9 points behind Bayern and Leipzig respectively. By December last year, it had become clear that Tuchel was unlikely to coach Dortmund long-term. Watzke put pressure on Tuchel in January, saying that if the team fell out of the top three in the Bundesliga, it would be a serious problem. People are disappointed. Tuchel only has 18 months left on his contract with Dortmund, but renewal talks have been delayed.

In early 2017, Dortmund continued to be turbulent. In January, a friendly match against Erfurt was canceled when Dortmund's flight failed to land at the local airport; the club bought a player Tuchel had never heard of: Alexander Isak.

(Picture) Dortmund did not seek Tuchel’s consent before signing Isaac

In February, due to fan violence during Dortmund’s home game against Leipzig, The team was fined to close the southern stands in the next game against Wolfsburg... Dortmund also suffered an upset loss to relegation team Darmstadt, and Tuchel once again criticized the club's recruitment plan. Gotze was declared out for the season in February due to a metabolic disorder; in March, Dortmund's match against Lotte was postponed due to bad weather. Aubameyang caused controversy when he wore a Nike mask to celebrate a goal (note: Puma is a shareholder and sponsor of Dortmund), and rumors that he will switch to other teams often appear.

Soon, the discord between Tuchel and the Dortmund management came to light. Some media outlets have taken the club's side, while others have revealed secrets that Dortmund believe were leaked by Tuchel's adviser Olaf Meinking. Some people believe that Megin is behind the scenes to make his client (Tuchel) appear to have higher coaching ability than he actually is.

“These distorted claims were spread by a few anonymous people.” Megin said, “This is very unethical. Anonymous rumors are spread widely, but they have nothing to do with me. As Tuchel’s closest friend Confidant, I have also been attacked by some people."

Before the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals on April 11, the Dortmund bus encountered three explosive attacks on its way to the stadium. Overall the team was quite lucky - only defender Bartra was taken to the hospital due to injury. After the bombings, the match between Dortmund and Monaco was postponed to the next day. Dortmund CEO Watzke agreed to UEFA's rescheduling of the match time.

The game must go on, but Tuchel and the Dortmund players are not happy. Tuchel slammed UEFA's decision and said he only received a text message about the postponement of the game, but this also means that he is dissatisfied with Watzke. Dortmund players felt like they were being treated like animals.

Dortmund was eliminated by Monaco in the quarter-finals. Understandably, it was difficult for the players to focus on playing football - before the second leg, Dortmund players sat in the club bus for 20 minutes for unknown reasons before the bus started to drive to the stadium.

Tuchel once won some public opinion with his strong words and he continued to do so in a tumultuous 2017, but not everyone in Dortmund believed him.

"In the last few months, Tuchel's communication was only to achieve one purpose, and that was to save himself from disaster." Gurucheski said.

In early May, after a series of incidents, Watzke accused Tuchel of not telling the truth about the aftermath of the bombing. Watzke first confirmed that he had "a disagreement" with Tuchel, then told Süddeutsche Zeitung that he was notified of the postponement via phone call (not just a text message)... like a child. A childish struggle between.

In the following weeks, some media began to whitewash the senior management of the Dortmund club and described Tuchel as a person who did not respect the facts when making remarks. However, Megin said: "Thomas (Tuchel) is always open and aboveboard when communicating with people, which is the most important thing."

Dortmund and Tuchel originally planned to talk to bridge their differences, but Later, the purpose of communication between the two parties became to negotiate a way to break up that would not damage the reputation of the club and the coach. Watzke said in May that the focus of talks during the summer offseason would be "strategy, communication, and trust in addition to sporting factors," and Tuchel's advisers also reiterated that they "will go into the pre-announced meeting on an equal footing." Negotiations” – Unfortunately Tuchel left himself no escape route at Dortmund, so much so that the club’s management, players and staff turned against him.

Last Saturday, after Dortmund defeated Frankfurt and won the German Cup, Tuchel's rift with some players was once again exposed to the public. Weigel missed the game due to an ankle injury, but Shaheen, one of the team leaders, still failed to make the game roster. Dortmund's captain and co-captain Schmelzer and Marco Reus were both "shocked" that Shaheen was not included in the squad and publicly stated that they fully support their teammates.

In the relationship between Tuchel and Dortmund, all trust has been exhausted and no one can look back.

For Dortmund, which experiences drastic changes every summer, this summer will also be full of uncertainties. The club's top priority is to find a manager to replace Tuchel, who can steer the team away from off-field chaos and once again compete in the Bundesliga and Europe.