Lothar Matthaus feels that Lucien Favre might now have one foot out of the door at Borussia Dortmund, after the Newcastle United-linked coach dropped a rather cryptic comment on his future yesterday, while speaking to Sky Deutschland.
Football can be a cruel game at times.
Dortmund produced a performance reminiscent of Jurgen Klopp’s gegenpressing peak in the first half of Tuesday’s Klassiker clash with Bayern Munich. But, for all their ‘heavy metal football’, it was a glorious Joshua Kimmich goal that orchestrated a win to put the Bavarian giants one huge step closer to glory at the hosts’ expense.
‘Close’ is unlikely to be good enough for BVB, who also missed out on the title in agonising fashion during Favre’s first season at the helm in 2018/19.
The softly-spoken Swiss has been tipped to leave at the end of the campaign for quite some time now and a man linked with Newcastle via ESPN only added fuel to the fire during his post-match interview.
“I don’t read the newspapers, but I know what’s going on. I will make a statement in a couple of weeks,” Favre said rather mysteriously.
According to Sky, Dortmund have been in talks with Niko Kovac, the recently sacked Bayern coach no less, about a deal that would see him take Favre’s job at the Signal Iduna Park.
And Matthaus believes it is only a matter of time before that comes to fruition.
“I looked at (his comments) and immediately thought: Favre’s gone,” said the 1990 Ballon D’Or winner. “Favre’s gone, Niko Kovac is coming. That was my first thought after these statements.
“Niko Kovac knows how to win titles. He only showed that in Frankfurt and then at FC Bayern.”
The Croatian coach certainly wasn’t Mr Popular at Bayern due to his rather traditional style of football but, despite all the critics, he still managed to lead FC Hollywood to a domestic double 12 months on from sealing DFB Pokal glory at Frankfurt.
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