MICHAEL ZORC
Dortmund’s talent spotter supreme
While new Borussia Dortmund coach Lucien Favre and his merry band of turbo-charged stars are showered with praise for their sensational efforts this season – setting the pace in the Bundesliga and qualifying with ease for the last 16 of the Champions League – it’s all too easy to overlook the sterling work off the ball by general manager Michael Zorc, the man in charge of personnel strategy at the Ruhr outfit. He is the real power behind the throne.
Make no mistake, there would be no Dortmund resurgence without Zorc’s eye for talent, extensive contacts book, flair for hardball negotiations and finger on the pulse of the club’s culture.
Dortmund from head to toe, he was an outstanding midfielder with the club for 20 years. A former captain and Sportdirektor since 1998, he knows exactly the type of player the fans at the Westfalenstadion demand: brave, committed, honest and attack-minded.
Capped six times by Germany, for Zorc the club’s identity is priceless and beyond compromise.
One of the most astute administrators in the European game, the 56-year-old has pulled off many a transfer coup, notably bringing in such raw talent as Tomas Rosicky, Mats Hummels, Robert Lewandowski, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ousmane Dembele. But never before has he assembled a better recruitment class than the one which arrived in the last transfer window in August.
More or less every recent signing has turned out to be a source of substantial added-value. Midfield anchor men in Belgium’s Axel Witsel (from Tianjin Quanjian) and Denmark’s Thomas Delaney (Borussia Monchengladbach), French centre-back Abdou Diallo (Mainz), Moroccan right-back Achraf Hakimi (on secondment from Real Madrid) and, last but by no means least, free-scoring ex-Valencia and Barcelona striker Paco Alcacer, whose initial loan was quickly made permanent. Former Eintracht Frankfurt right-winger Marius Wolf was also making a positive impact until laid low by an autumnal thigh injury.
An investment of some 75million has reaped a mega dividend; quite possibly, the Bundesliga-winning kind. Most important of all, Zorc has proved that football at the highest level need not necessarily be a big-bucks preserve, that Dortmund can compete with much wealthier rivals at home and abroad.
After the club’s financial collapse in the early part of the millennium, Zorc and
CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke had to turn to a more sustainable business model, one based on the acquisition and development of prodigies from around the globe. And it’s worked a treat too, with such exciting tyros as Christian Pulisic and Jadon Sancho queuing up to join the Dortmund dream factory.
“Our calling card must always be that we are the best club for top talent,” says Zorc. When he does eventually retire in a few years, he will not easily be replaced.