We have seen many good Borussia Dortmund squads over the years, and a few bad ones: teams floundering below expectation and looking for inspiration, as well as teams that have all the pieces but need a spark. Enter Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, Ousmane Dembélé, Henrikh Mhkitaryan, Shinji Kagawa, Mario Götze, and more. Dortmund have been both saved and elevated by players who are more than just a piece of the system, but something more special than that. These types of players have often taken Dortmund to new heights and achievements, like Götze’s league titles or a cup victory for Sancho. Erling Haaland saved BVB from a season where the net seemed hard to find.
Dortmund’s reputation for fostering talent keeps the team relevant, both competitively and financially. It is the basis for our uneven and sporadic success. Few would argue that the next player to step into the spotlight for BVB was Jamie Gittens. So, why didn’t he?
Gittens is the most recent gem of the Borussia Dortmund academy. He tore it up with BVB’s youth program, leading Dortmund to a hard-fought quarter-finals loss against Atletico Madrid. Gittens’ brace against Manchester United helped the team reach that important match, and put his incredible skill on display. It was this performance that earned him a place in the Borussia Dortmund senior squad.
Manchester United v Borussia Dortmund: Round Of Sixteen - UEFA Youth League Photo by Charlotte Tattersall/Getty Images
It’s easy to forget that this isn’t Gittens’ first run with the senior team, given the way he arrived in the fall (remember we used to address him as Bynoe-Gittens, yes yes it’s all coming back now). Despite a series of setbacks, particularly a set of shoulder injuries in the previous season, Gittens has always oozed raw talent. This season, he was destined to make himself known. As Nuri Sahin fought a cascade of demons (let’s save that for another time), he came to rely on the individual brilliance of Jamie Gittens to find a spurt of luck for Borussia Dortmund, blasting past defenders with pace or dancing into the box to curl a shot past the keeper. Gittens had picked up the BVB “look at him go” mantle and even Sean was ready to call him the real deal.
Then he got benched.
I will acknowledge that I actually supported this move. As the Nuri Sahin era wore on, and the results continued to crater, it became harder and harder for Gittens, a kid, to put the team on his back and find some magic. Teams caught onto his tricks, he grew frustrated, and he made mistakes. When Niko Kovac arrived, it was about stability. Consistency. Reliability. A mercurial player like Jamie Gittens does not fit that mold.
Jamie Gittens was caught in the crossfires of his own success—he had shown everyone how good he was, but in doing so, masked how bad everyone around him looked by comparison. When he couldn’t do it weekly, he became the scapegoat. Football is cruel.
Borussia Dortmund v FC Barcelona - UEFA Champions League 2024/25 Quarter Final Second Leg Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
The move to a three-back was another stroke of misfortune for Gittens. Dortmund did not have a proper right winger after the departure of Donyell Malen, and Kovac identified this as an opportunity to (incredulously) play the three strikers he had on the team instead (Karim Adeyemi is a striker, people). After the whole of the dressing room had moaned about being played out of position under Nuri Sahin, where exactly was Niko Kovac supposed to put Jamie Gittens? Well, on the bench. BVB got their act together, and the starting 11 solidified without Gittens in it.
What happened to Gittens in the Rückrunde was unfair, but for Borussia Dortmund, was it necessary? Can the financial and international success of the team be wagered against the development of a single player? Well, that’s an existential question for Borussia Dortmund.
Dortmund have been bolstered, pampered even, by their last two high profile departures. Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham are generational talents; they were going to succeed whether they were at Borussia Dortmund or Bristol City. They left BVB for two of the most successful teams in football, and have each collected league and UCL titles before their 25th birthdays. My point? These two players were unicorns, and they masked over a growing issue at BVB: the talent factory is underproducing.
Jamie Gittens, should he depart in the summer, will join a growing list of players who had the potential to be great, but didn’t get there. Gio Reyna, Donyell Malen, Youssoufa Moukoko, and if Dortmund aren’t careful, Julien Duranville. Not every player will be a generational talent. Let’s be honest, Henrikh Mihkitaryan and Shinji Kagawa will not be in the footballing hall of fame, but they are players that had talent, and Dortmund fostered them into household names and high dollar sales. Jamie Gittens was a hundred million dollar player in the winter, and today, he is not.
DFB Pokal Halbfinale FC Bayern Muenchen - Borussia Dortmund Photo by Team 2 Sportphoto/ullstein bild via Getty Images
This season was a bad one for BVB, no doubt about it. But putting youth development at odds with meeting minimum expectation is a path to destruction for this club. This could be an organizational issue, a tactics issue. It could certainly be down to the constantly rotating cast of coaches on the touchline. But Jamie Gittens could become a case study for how BVB lost their status as the proving ground for global stardom, if the trend continues.