BERLIN: Germany’s 2014 World Cup hero Mario Gotze (pix) will leave Borussia Dortmund when his contract expires at the end of the season, the Bundesliga club’s sporting director Michael Zorc said on Saturday.
“We have agreed that we will not continue working together after the season,” Zorc told Sky TV ahead of Dortmund’s 2-0 win at Wolfsburg.
“It was a mutual and respectful decision. Mario is a great lad. I believe that he will still be important to us this season.”
But like so often, Goetze was stuck on the bench for the Wolfsburg game, and coach Lucien Favre had said on Friday he doesn’t really have a place for him in the star-studded and young squad.
At the moment we are playing with a 3-4-3 formation. And I have made it clear to him that this is not the ideal formation for him. You have to tell the truth there,” Favre said.
Gotze, 27, has rarely played since Favre became coach in 2018, and he has never really lived up to his talent again after scoring Germany’s winner in the 2014 World Cup final against Argentina.
Neither a 2013 move to Bayern Munich after his Dortmund debut as an immensely gifted 17-year-old in November 2009, nor his 2016 return to Dortmund have helped the forward, who has also struggled with various injuries.
While Dortmund fans were furious when their then idol departed for rivals Bayern – announced shortly before both sides contested the Champions League final where he didn’t play – the feeling will probably be very different this time around.
“Both sides are in a situation that is not necessarily satisfactory,” Zorc told Sky.
“And then I think it’s normal that he’s looking for a new challenge. He has a lot of credit here, he comes from our own youth system. It was a joint decision. It is also in his interest that he is looking for a new adventure, perhaps abroad. We’ll see.”
Finding a new club could become trickier amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I don’t expect top clubs to be waiting for Mario Gotze. I believe he must become more modest, concerning the club and the salary,” former Germany captain and now TV pundit Lothar Matthaeus said in a podcast on Sky last month.
Contract renewal talks reportedly also failed because he didn’t want to take a substantial pay-cut, and high demands could also pose problems finding a new club.
Michael Rummenigge, the brother of Bayern chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge who used to play for both clubs, was also critical in an April column for the Sportbuzzer portal.
“Mario must understand that it is up to him to rescue his career and end it in a good way,” he said.
But in order to achieve that, Rummenigge said that Gotze must concentrate on the basics and forget about “all this social media nonsense” – where Gotze has 4.3 million Twitter followers (more than Dortmund’s 3.5 million) and 8.4 million on Instagram.
“When I see him on Instagram I wonder whether that he is a still a footballer or rather a show talent,” Rummenigge said. – dpa
