Gotze heads for Bayern as Dortmund dismantling gets underway

Reports of his transfer from last year’s champions to this year’s came out in Bild and was soon confirmed by the selling club, Dortmund, and then Bayern themselves.

Unfortunately for Dortmund Gotze had a release clause in his contract of €37m, an opportunity which Bayern obviously were not going to let pass. This 20 year old is one of the most gifted youngsters in the game today, and having already starred in the Bundesliga and Champions League his hefty transfer fee looks justified.

So that’s another of the most highly rated men in the game captured by Bayern before the summer trading has even started. Indeed according to Jurgen Klopp, the Dortmund manager, it was the opportunity to work with Pep Guardiola which tempted Gotze to move to their rivals.

“I’ve spoken to Mario,” he said. “Mario has not taken this decision to spite his team-mates in the slightest. He has not decided to spite the club – he has too much to thank them for. He is the player Pep Guardiola really wanted. He didn’t want to pass up on the chance to work together with this extraordinary coach.”

To lose Gotze at all was a major blow, but to do so to Bayern even more so. This is the team Dortmund usurped for two years and who they are trying to compete with in Germany. They can’t even keep their best players from joining them. Robert Lewandowski is reportedly likely to join Bayern as well this summer and if that comes to fruition then two parts of Dortmund’s formidable three man attack will be bought by their biggest rivals.

This raises questions for Bayern and German football. Recently talk was of how Germany avoids the Bundesliga becoming dominated by two teams at the expense of the rest. You wonder whether there is even a second team who can dominate now. With Guardiola going to Bayern, this relentless side are going to get even better. Bayern are already thrashing teams 6-1 with their ‘reserve’ side. It was not long ago that Uli Hoeness was suggesting they should do something to avoid the Bundesliga becoming too uncompetitive. Yeah, like not signing your rivals best players for a start.

It is a shame for Dortmund, a superbly well run club who have built a wonderfully exciting and vibrant young side which is now in danger of being rapidly dismantled by their foes from Bavaria. You hope they can reinvest the money made from Gotze and any other major sales such as that of Lewandowski in the kind of world class players they need to compete at the top. That could help them to continue to punch their weight as a major European power. They are in the last four of the Champions League, and deservedly so, they are at least one of the four best sides in Europe.

Let’s hope perhaps that they go further still to let this team bow out on a high. But the dismantling of this club is not just a blow for their fans and players, but for football as a whole.