Michael Zorc bemoans everyone depending on Borussia Dortmund to take down Bayern Munich

In an interview with SZ (as captured by @iMiaSanMia), Borussia Dortmund sporting director Michael Zorc insisted that expectations for BVB to be the club to stop Bayern Munich’s reign over the Bundesliga are unfair.

“Bayern’s dominance? Everyone makes mistakes, we made mistakes too. But I don’t think they were serious mistakes to the point that it’s our fault Bayern won the title 10 times in a row,” Zorc said. “If you want to become champion against Bayern with this outstanding generation of (Manuel) Neuer, (Robert) Lewandowski, (Thomas) Müller and with €285 million more in revenues, Bayern have to — figuratively speaking — crash their car into the barrier. But they never did us any favors.”

Zorc said that despite the uphill battle, his club has done well to compete, but has not been able to get over the hump.

“We came close at least twice in recent years, once in Thomas Tuchel’s first year and in (Lucien) Favre’s first year. But unfortunately we didn’t do it both times. Many don’t see that our direct duels in recent years have been the decisive factor,” Zorc remarked. “This year we’re 12 points behind. If we had won both games against them, we’d be level. In both games we felt clearly disadvantaged by the referee. Either way we have to face it — we need to do better in our direct duels.”

Interestingly, Zorc also stated that other clubs need to depend less on Borussia Dortmund to play the foil to Bayern Munich.

“It may sound weird, but it’s a disadvantage to constantly deal with the expectations that BVB have to stop Bayern. We did our job — yes we made mistakes, but everyone suggests that we failed despite mostly finishing second. This is a trap we let ourselves be maneuvered into,” Zorc said. “I don’t think it’s fair. The financial gap between Bayern and us is bigger than the gap between us and Greuther Fürth. The media don’t pay too much attention to that.”