Football
Stephan Uersfeld, Germany correspondent 9y

Jurgen Klopp not quitting Borussia Dortmund - Hans-Joachim Watzke

Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke has told Bild that Jurgen Klopp will not quit as coach despite the club's biggest crisis in recent years.

Dortmund have only won seven points from their first eight Bundesliga games of the season, and have picked up just one point from their last five matches in what sporting director Michael Zorc has called the club's "most difficult time in years."

Following BVB's latest 2-1 defeat away to Cologne, Klopp said that the club is currently in a "relegation fight" and looked increasingly worried during the postgame news conference.

"When Jurgen addresses things like that way, it's totally right. The biggest mistake we could commit now would be to belittle the sporting crisis," Watzke said. "The danger right now is that people tell us that we have such a good team and our problems will just vanish. That's not my opinion."

At the start of the season, Dortmund were without a number of key players such as Marco Reus, Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gundogan, Jakub Blazczykowski, Nuri Sahin, and Henrik Mkhitaryan. Most of them have since returned to the squad, but the disappointing run has not ended and BVB currently sit 14th in the table.

"It will be a lot of hard work," Watzke said. "We are just there where we are in the standings -- in the lower regions. We, and I most of all mean the team, needs to put every effort in getting out of that region."

Throughout the unfolding crisis, the media and the club have tried to figure out what exactly is wrong at the club. Some critics have argued that Jurgen Klopp lacks a plan B -- especially after the departure of attacker Robert Lewandowski to Bayern Munich -- and also after other Bundesliga teams have found measures against Dortmund's full-throttle football.

Watzke has, however, backed Klopp and "entirely ruled out" that the coach could quit his Dortmund job.

"Jurgen will always find the fitting solution," he continued. "Moreover he feels very connected to our collective project. We've been on the sunny side for years, stormed from success to success. Why should we busy ourselves with negative thoughts in our first real sporting crisis?

"I have always said that it's up to our coach to decide when his time at BVB has come to an end. It will stay like that. He is not tired of office, not even for a second, he has the same energy like on his first day."

Instead of talking about a return to the Champions League with a match against Galatasaray on Wednesday, Watze says Dortmund must focus on climbing the Bundesliga: "It would be totally misplaced to talk about a Champions League position now."

BVB are currently in their fourth consecutive Champions League season and have won their opening two games of the European season, and could make a huge step towards their third consecutive knockout stage by taking all three points back home from Istanbul.

"What I expect above all from my team is to be solid in defence. We have a lot room for improvement in that sense," Klopp told his pregame news conference on Tuesday.

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