Random assortment of Dortmund updates

By: Steven | June 14th, 2007

First off, former Borrusia Dortmund coach Bert van Marwijk will be the new coach of Feyenoord Rotterdam — again. van Marwijk was at Feyenoord from 2000-2004, where he won the UEFA Cup (ironically against Dortmund), before taking over at the Westfalenstadion.

And since we’re on the subject of former BVB personnel, David Odonkor had a rather unproductive season with Real Betis. The way-too-fast winger appeared in 12 games for Betis, tallying zero goals and one assist. Oh well, he’s still got the whole speed thing goin’ for him. (For the record, I like Odonkor. I wish we could have kept him, but the club needed money. His pace down the flanks is something I really, really miss.)

As for the last little bit on ex-Dortmunders, Tomas Rosicky is lamenting dropping points to lower sides, but still enjoyed his time at Arsenal.

Changing gears from ex-BVB members to new BVB members, Giovanni Federico has said that he wants to play in the “number 10″ position. This is interesting because he was just recently named the 2.Bundesliga’s top offensive winger. So why would he want to take over in the middle of the park? And if he does take over in the middle, what happens to Pienaar?

That’s got me thinking. If we have a “number 10″/playmaker in the midfield, how will that affect the formation? Frei (when he’s healthy) is a no-brainer starter, and Klimowicz is most likely to partner him up top. Mladen Petric is supposed to be a “hanging striker”, so that would put Pienaar/Federico awfully close to Petric. It could be interesting, though. (Perhaps a 4-2-1-1-2/quasi 4-3-1-2 formation?)

I don’t think Petric would mind, though. In a recent interview, he was quoted as saying that, although he feels better playing as a pure striker, he is also capable of playing behind them. Good to see he’s willing to adapt to a new position.

And now, for your obligatory David Rozehanl update (because I know you haven’t had enough of this whole ordeal already…).

According to Kicker, Michael Zorc has confirmed that Rozehanl would rather join BVB than head to Newcastle. “We know that the player would rather join us than move to England. What else has not changed is that we are far from a transfer fee agreement with PSG.”

Well, hopefully we GET to a transfer agreement because I think Rozehnal could do really well in the Bundesliga. Time will tell.

P.S. This is the last from me for a while. I’ll be out for about a week, so I’ll post some more when I return. Hopefully I come back to news that Dortmund has completely gotten rid of their debt and has signed Rozehnal to boot. OK, that first part is just wishful thinking on my part, but I’m getting more and more convinced that Rozehnal is on his way to Dortmund.

See you next week!