FEATURE | How Borussia Mönchengladbach are on the verge of a return European football with their identity at the heart of it | OneFootball

Borussia Mönchengladbach are currently within touching distance of the Champions League places. This time last season, they were languishing in mid-table, before a drop off saw relegation become a major concern.

After a period of turbulence that saw valuable players such as Marcus Thuram, Manu Koné, Denis Zakaria, and Breel Embolo leave for nothing or a fraction of what they could have been sold for, Gladbach have needed to rebuild.

die Fohlen have managed to do this with the ‘Borussia Way’ playing a role in their recent success.

The ‘Borussia Way’, going off quotes from directors, involves promoting players from the academy to the first team. Gladbach have been rather successful with this in the past with Marc-André ter Stegen, Jordan Beyer, Patrick Herrmann and Tony Jantschke all playing for the first team.

This season, Mortiz Nicolas (27, 1,730 minutes), Rocco Reitz (21, 1,514), Tiago Pereira Cardoso (19, 379), Noah Pesch (19, 5), and Shio Fukuda (21, 40) have all featured at some point and have come through the clubs academy, while Niklas Swider is regularly a part of first team training and Yvandro Borges Sanches has previously featured, but struggled with injuries. On top of this, Lukas Ullrich (21, 1,573) and Fabio Chiarodia (19, 199) have also played roles.

Reitz is the jewel of all of these players, Mönchengladbach born, Mönchengladbach bred, a club member as well. Since being given a place in the starting 11 by Gerardo Seoane, he has consistently been one of the most reliable players for Gladbach during their struggling form.

Speaking to Bild, Reitz gave his thoughts on Gladbach’s high flying:

After the terrible past few seasons, Gladbach are in a very good position to qualify for a European competition. Even featuring in the UEFA Conference League will take them to a level, financially, that hasn’t been seen since their last venture in the Champions League in 2020/21. While a place in the Europa League or Champions League could massively accelerate the process, if done correctly (not like Union Berlin or Schalke).

Now, after all the praise, this is not the true ‘Borussia Way’.

What is the ‘Borussia Way’ you may ask?

Well, it goes back to when Gladbach first gained promotion to the Bundesliga and were given the nickname, die Fohlen, because the football they played was fun attacking football and they were filled with several local youth players like Berti Vogts, Günter Netzer and Jupp Heynckes.

Despite Gladbach currently sitting in a good position for Europe, this positioning can be down mainly to two things:

The overreliance is also down to a distinct lack of style under head coach Gerardo Seoane, so what I am about to say may be unpopular, but unless Seoane has a new phase up his sleeve, like Mikel Arteta, this is as far as Gladbach are likely to go under the Swiss and a new manager could be brought in who does play a better, more ‘fun’ style of play that is more akin to the ‘Borussia Way’ and can take the club to the next level (please god, not another Red Bull manager).

However, it can be seen that the team is more defensively strong, something pointed out by Reitz:

It also has to be acknowledged that, unless Don Rollo cooks (If Sporting Director Roland Virkus makes smart signings, for the non-Gen-Z readers), European football could decimate this squad. Away from the best starting 11, there is a big drop in quality, which against teams from Albania and some random village team from a place where people think the USSR still exists is fine, but it does not have the capabilities to manage an extra midweek game.

The squad building in the summer will have to be on point to add to this depth, while other exciting youth prospects in the academy, such as Killian Saucek or Winsley Boteli or Charles Herrman from the second team, could be given opportunities in the future. Other names are also previously mentioned, if they fulfil their promise, are: Taavi Koukkumäki, Marcello Trippel, Elias Vali Fard, Can Armando Güner and Mathieu Nguefack.

On top of this, as good as he has been, Gladbach needs to become less reliant on Tim Kleindienst. He won’t always be fit, and he won’t always be firing, and this is where Gladbach also needs to improve, especially if they do end up playing twice a week. Kleindienst has contributed to 22 out of 46 of die Fohlen’s goals this season – too much.

If Gladbach do make their long-awaited return to Europe, it will be a remarkable achievement and a step in the right direction for a club that has looked majorly lost in recent seasons and will, hopefully, be the beginning of them catching up to the likes of Stuttgart and a struggling Borussia Dortmund.

GGFN | Jack Meenan