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Six times
champions
Borussia Dortmund is one the biggest clubs in Germany, six
times league champions and boasting the country's largest stadium by some
distance.
Pub team
Why the name Borussia?
Well,
the club was apparently formed in
the back room of a pub in
1909
and the name was taken from a
sign hanging on the wall for the
Borussia Brewery next door. |
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The
club's full name is the snappy (not!) Ballspiel-Verein Borussia 1909
e.V. Dortmund, which can be roughly translated as 'The Borussia 1909 Ball
Games Association of Dortmund'. Hence the BVB in the
logo.
First European winners in Germany
In the period
before the launch of the Bundesliga for the
1963/64 season, Borussia Dortmund won the German championship three times (by
winning their regional league and then winning the national championship
final). In 1965, the club won the German FA Cup for the first time and in
the following year became the first German side to win a European trophy,
beating Liverpool 2-1 (after extra time) in the Cup Winners' Cup final at
Hampden Park, Glasgow.
The Hitzfeld era
The club's
most successful period since formation of the Bundesliga came under manager Ottmar Hitzfeld (who
later became internationally famous as manager of Bayern Munich). Under
Hitzfeld, the club won the Bundesliga in 1995
and 1996 and went on to win the European Champions League in 1997, beating
Juventus 3-1 in the final.
One more championship and a mountain
of debt
Despite one further championship title under former player
Matthias Sammer in 2002 (when Bayer Leverkusen surprisingly gave away a
five-point lead over the final three games of the season), the club has been
dogged in the new millennium by a mountain of debt, following an ambitious stock
market flotation and a lack of European
success.
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