I thought Seire A was bad in regards to players moving from one rival to another but this just takes the cake. The second Bayern smell competition from another team in the league they go off and buy all their best players

McAgger wrote:I thought Seire A was bad in regards to players moving from one rival to another but this just takes the cake. The second Bayern smell competition from another team in the league they go off and buy all their best players

Happens in the EPL too.

S wrote:

McAgger wrote:I thought Seire A was bad in regards to players moving from one rival to another but this just takes the cake. The second Bayern smell competition from another team in the league they go off and buy all their best players

Happens in the EPL too.

Not nearly as often as Bundesliga or Serie A and almost never directly between rivals (a player might join a rival of a fomer team indirectly through a third team but almost never directly)

McAgger wrote:

S wrote:

McAgger wrote:I thought Seire A was bad in regards to players moving from one rival to another but this just takes the cake. The second Bayern smell competition from another team in the league they go off and buy all their best players

Happens in the EPL too.

Not nearly as often as Bundesliga or Serie A and almost never directly between rivals (a player might join a rival of a fomer team indirectly through a third team but almost never directly)

Give me examples ? In recent memory apart from Inter and Milan trading scrubs between each other ,it has barely happened.Infact i could even argue it has occurred quite often in EPL in the recent past.

S wrote:

McAgger wrote:

S wrote:

Happens in the EPL too.

Not nearly as often as Bundesliga or Serie A and almost never directly between rivals (a player might join a rival of a fomer team indirectly through a third team but almost never directly)

Give me examples ? In recent memory apart from Inter and Milan trading scrubs between each other ,it has barely happened.Infact i could even argue it has occurred quite often in EPL in the recent past.

Hell Juve just bought Ogbonna from city rivals Torino.
Muntari trading Inter for Milan. Inter loaning Matias Sylvestre to Milan this season. The deal between inter and Milan with Cassano-Pazzini swap. Ibra dumping Juve for Inter back in the day. And that's just off the top of my head.

Give me examples in the PL why don't you?

I am getting sick of this thing, first Götze and now Lewa

McAgger wrote:

S wrote:

McAgger wrote:

S wrote:

Happens in the EPL too.

Not nearly as often as Bundesliga or Serie A and almost never directly between rivals (a player might join a rival of a fomer team indirectly through a third team but almost never directly)

Give me examples ? In recent memory apart from Inter and Milan trading scrubs between each other ,it has barely happened.Infact i could even argue it has occurred quite often in EPL in the recent past.

Hell Juve just bought Ogbonna from city rivals Torino.
Muntari trading Inter for Milan. Inter loaning Matias Sylvestre to Milan this season. The deal between inter and Milan with Cassano-Pazzini swap. Ibra dumping Juve for Inter back in the day. And that's just off the top of my head.

Give me examples in the PL why don't you?

Sturridge, RvP, Moses, Adebayor, Clichy

Torres, Tevez (sort of), Obi Mikel (sort of), Sebastian Veron, Nasri

Nah Chelsea/Pool CHelsea/United aren't rivals. Which is why I didn't list players between Juve/Milan.

Adebayor went to City first before going to Spurs. We are talking about direct transfers between rivals.

I have no idea how Obi Mikel could possibly be counted.

Chelsea paid united ~12mil I think it was for Obi Mikel

If Dortmund were equal to Bayern, I doubt Gotze/Lewandowski would have moved. Plus Bayern/Dortmund aren't city rivals or anything.

Berbatov .......... Sol Campbell [arsenal e tottenham can be consider rivals, I hope. )

Yohan Modric wrote:If Dortmund were equal to Bayern, I doubt Gotze/Lewandowski would have moved. Plus Bayern/Dortmund aren't city rivals or anything.

You could argue they were. If not, Dortmund with Gotze and Lewandowski was as close as possible. They beat Bayern out for the league two seasons ago iirc, and just last year they met in the CL final while Dortmund was deflated because they were losing Gotze to the team they were playing.

There was little to no to gap between Bayern and Dortmund in a competitive sense. Financially, it appears to be a different story. Dortmund doesn't seem to be able to match Bayern there.

"The second Bayern smell competition from another team in the league they go off and buy all their best players"

Point being? Kagawa was their best player two season ago they didn't take him, but yet Dortmund lost him, as they did Sahin, now clubs are monitoring Reus and Hummels. Dortmund will lose their players regardless. If Lewy wasn't going to Bayern he would've signed for Chelsea/RM and Dortmund would've lost him still losing a competitive edge. Bayern are only trying to keep star players in their own league nothing wrong with it. The players deserve equal blame for this not like Bayern have a gun to his head. He would be better off probably at Chelsea/RM, but chooses not too.

People only notice this when it happens to a big club, especially one that has as many bandwagon fans like Borussia Dortmund.

10 of Dortmund's regular squad players were acquired from other German clubs.
7 of Bayern's regular squad players were acquired from other German clubs.

Bayern didn't exactly buy Lewandowski.

The scrub transfers in Serie A don't count. Nobody cares about Muntari, Silvestre, Mancini, etc. The only big ones recently were the Pazzini - Cassano swap between Milan and Inter and Ogbonna from Torino to Juve. However, these transfers are dwarfed by Goetze and Lewa from BD to Bayern.

The other point to note is that if we are not counting Milan-Juve or Arsenal-City as rivals, then why are we categorising BD - Bayern as a rivalry, McAgger? They are not traditional rivals or local rivals, they are only title rivals. As RWO said in another thread, there would've been an even bigger uproar had BD let Lewa go to Schalke. If we take into account title rivalry, the EPL has had many, many, many transfers between rivals.

For me the staggering thing about the Lewa transfer is the price, or rather, the lack of one. My view is that this transfer is only good for Bayern and that if Dortmund were smart, they would've sold Lewa to a big club outside their league for a huge fee. Hell, even selling him to Bayern for a huge fee is better than the catastrophic outcome of having a star player free transfer to a title rival. That is Dortmund's real shame.

I think there is a difference between clubs that have active rivalries and clubs that are rivals for the title. Players going from Barca to RM, from Liverpool to United, from Genoa to Sampdoria, etc is absolutely forbidden. But Chelsea and City, while both competing for the same objectives, don't really have an active rivalry. Such transfers are fine.

Forza wrote:For me the staggering thing about the Lewa transfer is the price, or rather, the lack of one. My view is that this transfer is only good for Bayern and that if Dortmund were smart, they would've sold Lewa to a big club outside their league for a huge fee. Hell, even selling him to Bayern for a huge fee is better than the catastrophic outcome of having a star player free transfer to a title rival. That is Dortmund's real shame.

The problems there were:

1. Borussia Dortmund would have let Robert Lewandowski go anywhere for 25 mio Euros last summer

2. Lewandowski wanted to transfer to Bayern München only, and so he turned down any other possibilities

3. Bayern München didn't really see a reason to pay 25 mio Euro when they would get him for free one year later

4. Borussia Dortmund thought about the situation and came to the conclusion they couldn't get a like for like replacement on short notice for about 25 mio Euros or less anyway, and they needed a top striker to stay competitive right now

5. They set up a calculation that they would lose about 40 mio Euros if they would miss the qualification for the next CL season, which would have been likely if they lost Lewandowski without having a proper replacement. Then the 25 mio they earned would be offset by 40 mio loss, making it 15 mio loss.
Now they only need to end the BL in the last four (which is likely) and they earn about 40 mio Euros, this offset by Lewandowski going for free makes a plus of 15 mio Euros, so they are actually better off by letting him go for free.

rwo power wrote:

Forza wrote:For me the staggering thing about the Lewa transfer is the price, or rather, the lack of one. My view is that this transfer is only good for Bayern and that if Dortmund were smart, they would've sold Lewa to a big club outside their league for a huge fee. Hell, even selling him to Bayern for a huge fee is better than the catastrophic outcome of having a star player free transfer to a title rival. That is Dortmund's real shame.

The problems there were:

1. Borussia Dortmund would have let Robert Lewandowski go anywhere for 25 mio Euros last summer

2. Lewandowski wanted to transfer to Bayern München only, and so he turned down any other possibilities

3. Bayern München didn't really see a reason to pay 25 mio Euro when they would get him for free one year later

4. Borussia Dortmund thought about the situation and came to the conclusion they couldn't get a like for like replacement on short notice for about 25 mio Euros or less anyway, and they needed a top striker to stay competitive right now

5. They set up a calculation that they would lose about 40 mio Euros if they would miss the qualification for the next CL season, which would have been likely if they lost Lewandowski without having a proper replacement. Then the 25 mio they earned would be offset by 40 mio loss, making it 15 mio loss.
Now they only need to end the BL in the last four (which is likely) and they earn about 40 mio Euros, this offset by Lewandowski going for free makes a plus of 15 mio Euros, so they are actually better off by letting him go for free.

What was stopping Dortmund going to Bayern back then and saying we will give you Lewa for cash + Mandzukic? That Bayern were going to get him for free the next year? At that stage, this was not a certainty. Also, I find it hard to believe that he explicitly rejected the offers of other top clubs and equally difficult to believe that they couldn't find a replacement for Lewa in 1.5 yrs. And even more ridiculous is the prospect of Dortmund missing out on CL qualification without Lewa.

Forza wrote:What was stopping Dortmund going to Bayern back then and saying we will give you Lewa for cash + Mandzukic?

Well, I guess they wouldn't have wanted to offer whatever wages Mandzukic is on at Bayern, or maybe Mandzukic wouldn't have wanted to leave Bayern. One can't really say, but Mandzukic for sure would have needed to be okay with that swap, too.

Forza wrote:That Bayern were going to get him for free the next year? At that stage, this was not a certainty.

Well, it was rumoured that there was already some pre-contract between Bayern and Lewandowski, no matter whether they were allowed to tap him or not. In a recent interview, one of his agents clearly said that the contract-hijacking attempt by Real fell through because they were bound to honour their "promise" to Bayern. Dunno if that "promise" was just made when talking to Bayern or if it was black on white in paper form.  ^^

Forza wrote:Also, I find it hard to believe that he explicitly rejected the offers of other top clubs

Actually I can believe that, given the reputation Bayern have and the success they currently enjoy. Moreover, Lewa could have learned from the cases of Nuri Sahin and Shinji Kagawa who fell through in the PL and decided to play it safer by staying in the BL for now.

Forza wrote:and equally difficult to believe that they couldn't find a replacement for Lewa in 1.5 yrs. And even more ridiculous is the prospect of Dortmund missing out on CL qualification without Lewa.

Well, at least that was the reason Watzke stated in several talk rounds in German TV.

I think what is very important about this is that Dortmund wanted to make a statement about not letting Götze AND Lewandowski be swooped by Bayern in the same window.

Lewandowski apparently was making a bit of a fuzz in summer because before Dortmund had told him he could leave for Bayern for some decent money (with just 1 year left on his contract).

But then Bayern activated Götze's release clause, and Dortmund said, no way Bayern will get both of them at the same time.
They thought, well if he leaves at the end of his contract, nothing we can do, but we won't sell him to Bayern NOW.

They'd sold him to other clubs maybe, but he didn't care for it.
So they had to do without a transfer fee, but on the upside they had one more year of Lewandowski, time to find a replacement, no 2 key players leaving to a rival at the same time.

I think they handled it perfectly, it sent a signal that they were not just going to be bullied around, and that's worth more than money.
They'll get another top striker for summer, they're good at this.

True, I totally forgot that! Two key players to Bayern in the same window would indeed have been inacceptable. I guess then the fans would have demanded for heads to roll among the BVB board.

Yes, and in my mind that was an incredible signal that they're not merely a selling club, but want to have the sovereignty of a top club.

That while they'll have to live with top players leaving every year they'll show that not everything goes for money with them.

I thought that was a very good thing for them, and the self-esteem of the club.

For me they aren't even rival clubs .

Ok Dortmund had some good years but it's not like Dortmund and Bayern were fighting for the championship for the last 15 years. It was always Bayern and some other random club winning the championship.

This is nowhere comparable to Madrid-Barca.