BORUSSIA DORTMUND HAVE announced the signing of Hoffenheim left-back Nico Schulz for a fee thought to be around £22m (€25m) on their official website.
He has signed a five-year deal that will take him through to the summer of 2024 and will be reunited with former head coach Lucien Favre, who he worked with at Borussia Monchengladbach.
Dortmund finished second in the Bundesliga in 2018-19 after taking a commanding lead but slipping behind eventual winners Bayern Munich, and despite taking the fight to the final day, they could not climb above their rivals.
Since that disappointment, they have been quick to reinforce, and have swiftly moved to improve an area of identified weakness — left-back.
Schulz, 26, is a Germany international and a forward-thinking full-back often deployed as a wing-back, scoring two goals and registering nine assists in 37 appearances across all competitions this season.
Dortmund have been left short at on that side of defence with injuries to Real Madrid loanee Achraf Hakimi and Abdou Diallo – a right-back and a centre-back by trade, but both able to cover at left-back – leaving 31-year-old Marcel Schmelzer to hold the fort, along with the defensively-suspect Raphael Guerreiro, who is much more comfortable on the wing.
The defender represents their second signing of the summer, after making Spanish striker Paco Alcacer’s loan deal from Barcelona a permanent one.
The forward impressed this season, hitting 18 goals in 26 Bundesliga games and also discovering a talent for taking free-kicks.
Links to wingers Julian Brandt and Thorgan Hazard have also emerged as they seek to replace the outgoing Christian Pulisic, who is bound for Chelsea.
They will be hoping to keep up with an already-active Bayern in the market, who have sealed deals for French defenders Lucas Hernandez and Benjamin Pavard from Atletico Madrid and Stuttgart, respectively, as well as young Hamburg striker Jann-Fiete Arp.
Both Bundesliga sides will also be hoping to improve on their Champions League campaigns next season, having been knocked out in the round of 16 by Premier League outfits Liverpool and Tottenham.
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Soccer always attracts the best
@John O Reilly: Turkey are a cut above.
@John O Reilly: soccer is a game for all, the rich, the poor and everyone in between. It’s not elitist and is representative of society as a whole, as all sports should be. This incident is representative of our society not soccer fans in general.
@GrumpyAulFella: it’s called football,generally it’s country people & Gaa heads who call it soccer…..FIFA UEFA don’t have the name soccer attached to them
@Tony Doyle: it’s the English themselves who coined the term soccer. People can it whatever they want. Your “country people (whatever that means) and GAA heads” quip is quite nonsensical.
@Tony Doyle: Wrong. It’s not called football. It’s called association football which is where the word soccer comes from and both FIFA and uefa have the word association in their names. It’s not just country people and gaa heads, as you so unintelligently put it, that call it that. It’s called that in other countries as well like the USA and Australia to distinguish it from the likes of American football or Aussie Rules Football in the same way it’s used here to differentiate it from Gaelic football. If anything soccer is a more correct term than just football as it’s derived from the sport’s proper name
@Mark Jay: Correct. Specifically it was students in Oxford who used the terms soccer and rugger to differentiate between association and rugby football
Very unlike the Turkish fans.
Have no interest in any team who supports putin. Fans or club’s.
Disgusting.
It takes a special kind of person to stoop to a level that low. Soccer fans get their moment in the spotlight. Can’t really say it was only a small percent in this case
They are some soulless people in the world unfortunately and this is an example.
Jayyyysus
Strange war if football players don’t have to sign up. Just asking…
@John Smith: perhaps they’re the morale booster the troops need? Something to tune into outside of the war, just saying…
I don’t think there are very many critical thinkers among the readership here.
What would you expect from a pig but a grunt?!
Do you know why the war started?
Gh,
@David Hughes: Well said
@mcdb06: and thanks to you I will be forever in your debt
G
I guess we are all Fenerbache fans now
@JustBEERbarry: don’t you mean Dynamo??
Gh
meh… Kiev still won…. They (the chanting fans) were just showing themselves up as sore losers
Igno rant fules. Likely to be perceived as toxic. And rightly so.
Turkish fans chose right side. Any respect from tolerant Europe?