"Heartbreaking": Sahin opens up about his struggles at BVB | OneFootball

After his departure from Borussia Dortmund, Nuri Sahin looks back on his time as a coach with self-criticism and speaks openly about mistakes and missed opportunities. At the same time, he hints that the conditions within the BVB squad and the club were not ideal for his style of play.

For Nuri Sahin, the coaching position at Borussia Dortmund was much more than just a job – it was a matter of the heart. As a former player and figure of identification for the club, he took over the team with great ambitions. But after just 27 competitive matches and an average of 1.48 points per game, his tenure ended prematurely in January 2025.

A year later, the 37-year-old looks back on this period with self-criticism and openly names the reasons for his failure. The separation from BVB hit him especially hard emotionally. “Since I had a special connection to Borussia, that first moment was heartbreaking,” Sahin recalled in retrospect to Sky Sports.

In doing so, Sahin also sees his own mistakes as a decisive factor. “Maybe the transition I had envisioned was too fast. […] I should have proceeded step by step, but I thought I could move forward more quickly. Of course, I made a mistake.” His vision of a long-term playing style could not be implemented as planned under the given circumstances.

Nuri Sahin exercises self-criticism and questions the BVB squad

At the same time, Sahin hinted that the personnel conditions were not optimal either. “We wanted to implement certain things, but did we have the right players for that?” In particular, his desire for a controlled build-up of play from the back met its limits. “For example, it really wasn’t possible to play out from the back with the goalkeeper,” he described the difficulties in implementing his tactical ideas.

Photo: Getty Images

Another central problem was that the alignment between coach and club was not always completely consistent. Sahin emphasized the importance of a shared understanding: “As a coach, it makes no sense if you want to go one way and the club wants to go another, even if you have the best players in the world. You have to pull together.”

After his exit from BVB, Sahin quickly found a new role at Basaksehir. There, it is already apparent that he has learned from his experiences. With an improved points average and stable performances, he has established his team in the upper ranks of the Turkish Süper Lig and has thus rehabilitated himself to some extent.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.