Emre Can and fellow cast-offs make Dortmund’s fantasy thrillingly real
Mats Hummels, Emre Can and Nico Schlotterbeck celebrate in Paris. ‘Nobody believed in us, but we believed,’ said Can. Photograph: Matthias Hangst/Getty Images
Emre Can is not the most obvious example in the Borussia Dortmund team but he is an example nonetheless; a player who has experienced rejection, who has had to battle to re-establish himself.
It is probably easier to see the narrative strand in, say, Jadon Sancho, who was pushed out of Manchester United in January and back to Dortmund after his falling-out with the manager, Erik ten Hag. Sancho’s poor form and rock-bottom confidence made it easier for United to sanction the loan.
How about Ian Maatsen, the left-back who was not wanted at Chelsea and was also loaned to Dortmund in January? Or Marcel Sabitzer, whom Bayern Munich were happy to sell to Dortmund last summer.
The list really does go on. It is the detail that links so many Dortmund players and has fired their astonishing run to the Champions League final, which they sealed on Tuesday with a 1-0 victory over Paris Saint-Germain at a raucous Parc des Princes for a 2-0 aggregate triumph.
The goalscorer on the night? Mats Hummels, also previously unwanted at Bayern, still going strong at 35. The first-leg scorer? Niclas Füllkrug, who seemingly no one felt could deliver at the highest level until he approached his 30th birthday.
Can felt the walls close in at Juventus in the summer of 2019. He had played well during the previous campaign – his first at the club after his free transfer from Liverpool – but everything changed when Maurizio Sarri took over from Max Allegri as the manager.
Sarri would omit Can from his Champions League squad. “It’s extremely shocking for me,” the midfielder said at the time. “They phoned me and told me, in a conversation that didn’t even last a minute, that I was not on the list and they didn’t give an explanation. That does make me angry and furious.”
Can started only two more Serie A games for Juventus before a move to Dortmund in January 2020, initially on loan, and so began his personal fightback. As the captain celebrated after the full-time whistle in Paris, alongside the cast-offs, the journeymen and the unheralded names, it was impossible not to see it as the pinnacle. Saying that, Can will want more when Dortmund go to Wembley for the final.
“To captain the team at Wembley in a Champions League final will be a very proud moment for me,” Can said. “It is one more step, one more game and we will give everything for that. We will be ready.
“Without believing in ourselves, you do not come along this far. After the second game in the Champions League, we had just one point in the group of death. Nobody believed in us but we believed. That is the key.”
Can is right. When Dortmund were thrust into a group that contained PSG, Milan and Newcastle, no one could confidently predict they would emerge from it. When they followed up a 2-0 loss in the opening match, away against PSG, with a 0-0 home draw with Milan, it looked over for them. Cue three straight wins – two against Newcastle, one in Milan – and qualification before the final game at home to PSG.
Dortmund’s history has also been a part of it, especially the manner in which they threw away the Bundesliga title on the final day of last season. They had needed to beat mid-table Mainz at home to secure their first championship since 2012. Instead, they drew and were pipped on goal difference by Bayern.
Dortmund have been the nearly men over the past decade or so, the perennial runners-up – and it was interesting to hear the manager, Edin Terzic, reference the final-day calamity of last season at the moment of triumph in Paris. It is a motivation. “I’m happy that we can now give something back to the fans,” Terzic said.
If no one has believed in the players at various times, the same has been true of them as a collective – particularly as they have found themselves at an awfully low ebb domestically this season. They lag fifth in the table, three points behind fourth-placed RB Leipzig with two games to play, although happily for them the Bundesliga has five Champions League places in next season’s expanded competition.
After getting past PSV Eindhoven in the last 16, Dortmund were expected to find that Atlético Madrid had too much firepower for them in the quarter-final. And yet it was Terzic’s team who prevailed in a wild second leg at home, Füllkrug and Sabitzer scoring after the 70th minute for a 5-4 aggregate win.
At Parc des Princes, what most stood out was Dortmund’s belief in Terzic’s system, their faith in each other, how they moved, covered and challenged seemingly as one. They rode their luck, PSG hitting the woodwork four times during a tumultuous second half.
But it had been no mere rearguard action in the first half, Dortmund holding off PSG with a degree of comfort and threatening on the break. Sancho had a few nice runs; plenty of players in yellow showed composure on the ball, especially Julian Brandt. When Hummels scored in the 50th minute, they had even more to hold and the suspicion was that the comeback would be beyond PSG, despite their increasingly frantic efforts.
Sancho was not the dazzling force that he had been in the first leg but he still showed his personality. “You could see in the two games how good he is and if he has the self-confidence from the coach and himself he can show his best performance,” Can said.
Can was asked whether he would like Sancho to remain at Dortmund next season. “I hope so,” he replied. First for the Champions League final – a notion that has felt like a fantasy but is now gloriously real.