A risky deal
Mladen Petric will play for Hamburger
Sportverein (HSV) while Borussia gets Mohamed Zidan and some money in exchange.
That was the news shocking Dortmunders and experts on Friday.Let’s have a closer look on what has happened: From the information we receive through media the deal was requested by HSV in the middle of the preceding week and Petric got well along with the idea of playing in the hanseatic city. It is still questionable whether Dortmund opted for Zidan or whether he was offered to us by Hamburg. However, the clubs agreed on Friday on the deal, Zidan and Petric agreed on Saturday with Dortmund and Hamburg, respectively. Hence, the final decision was made on Saturday. The amount of money we are getting in addition to Zidan was not officially published but rumours reveal a sum of about 5 million Euros with additional payment to be made in the event of further successes of HSV (i.e. qualifying Champions League and UEFA-Cup).
That’s the summary so far. But how can we assess what has happened? Let’s have a look at three groups of Dortmunders reacting differently to the deal:
Many say
that giving away Petric was a bad deal at all: Being our best striker last year
and having the ability of doing something unexpected and thus deciding a match,
he has been our greatest asset, many believe. Others say, and this is the
second big group, that it is possible to replace Petric but the sum we got for
him was way too low. About 7 million Euros would have been adequate some say in
order to get a first class offensive left midfielder required as an equivalent
of Kuba on the right wing. A small majority, and that is the third group, are
of the conviction, that the deal was a good one. Petric was neither comfortable
with Dortmund,
nor he showed any good performance in the second round of last season, this
group states. And then we have Zidan who will rebuild the successful tandem
with Jürgen Klopp, his mentor. It is also believed that he will add value to
the team since he has dribbling skills and is quite fast.
We do not
know which of the three opinions make up reality best. But what we know is that
Jürgen Klopp is likely to have a concept and Mladen Petric is not the
aggressive and hard-working attacker fitting this concept – though he certainly
got exceptional skills. But it seems that Jürgen Klopp rather prefers two
talents according to his ideas than one super-star playing “off-road” his
system. Think about Klopp trusting the two greenhorns Hummels and Subotic.
Thus, it is highly probable that Borussia makes use of the money from this deal
in order to seek a dynamic and fast left
midfielder, a position where there is
just Florian Kringe who does not fully fit this role either. And Zidan? He is
exactly the type of explosive and tricky striker who suits Jürgen Klopp’s
powerful and aggressive gameplay. Long story short: Giving away an “unsuitable”
Petric allows Klopp to integrate two “fitting” players – and this will help building
a more consistent team that does not depend on individual star skills but on
the combined skills of the team as a whole. An issue that would finally be
solved after years of inconsistent performances.
Sounds
great, doesn’t it? Well, there are some flaws about these ideas.
Firstly,
Borussia now has a bunch of similar strikers: Alex Frei, Nelson Valdez and
Mohammad Zidan are all aggressive strikers who need room for building up their
type of gameplay. Petric was rather a striker to wait in the penalty area and
suddenly marks a goal. This kind of attacker might be missing now. Secondly,
Zidan is known for his complicated personality being rather selfish and always
needed special attention from Klopp. This may harm the team’s unity which was
considered to be a great asset this year. Moreover, it is questionable whether
Zidan can play consistently on a high-level since he only did so in Mainz while he struggled in Bremen
and Hamburg. Thirdly,
Leonardo Dedé’s shocking injury (needs him to recover for at least 6 months!)
makes getting a new midfielder more difficult. While it was planned to reinvest
all of the 5 millions coming along with Zidan into a high-class midfielder,
some of the money will be needed for a new left back. This may not be helpful
for the plan to get new players fitting Klopp’s system best since there are now
closer (financial) boundaries for this plan or another type of player, probably
a more defensive-orientated one must be searched for.
As an eager
reader you’ll now understand the title of this article. This deal is very risky
as there are two major scenarios. The first one providing a better balanced
team with a working Zidan and a new value-adding midfielder; and a second one
stating a lower quality of the team and predicting difficulties in finding new
players to do both add value and replace Dedé.
The outcome
will be up to the team’s consciousness and willingness to compensate these
difficulties and show that it can win games even without strong individualists
like Petric. But as you may imagine the author strongly hopes for the second
scenario – with a deep trust in Klopp’s decision making and the team’s spirit
to realise his visions quickly.
Domi, 20.08.2008
