Dortmund’s cult figure wants to say goodbye with a big title

How can you reliably tell that a player has risen to legendary status? The fact that it is described as such is not enough. It takes a few exceptional features that go beyond just performance.

Borussia Dortmund’s Marco Reus is a player who has always remained loyal to his club. His coach Edin Terzic recently said after Dortmund beat Augsburg 5-1: “Marco is an absolute legend, born here. He played football here for twelve years, was captain for five years, and today he showed that he is one of the best in the world.”

The fans celebrated Reus’ last appearance

Terzic’s praise has a reason. Marco Reus will no longer extend his contract with Borussia Dortmund. Reus himself had pushed for a decision; the decision was different than he had hoped.

Some fans are saddened by the fact that what seems so extraordinary in this fast-moving business is now inevitably coming to an end. They accuse the club of a styleless separation from the player who shone against Augsburg last weekend and showed that even at the age of 34, he can pose big problems for a defense. The fans cheered Reus’ performance like a title win. Reus himself was touched after the final whistle. He even spoke of the most extraordinary day of his career. And that didn’t sound cheesy at all.

But this doesn’t change the fact that Reus, despite the praise from all sides, shows effort on the field: in terms of athleticism, speed and toughness in duels, he reaches his limits, especially when you analyze his defensive behavior. Anyone who compares him with the young Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen will see what has happened in football at the highest level over the last decade.

So he has a maximum of four games left to say goodbye to Borussia. Those in the Bundesliga are meaningless; It is questionable whether he will be used in the Champions League.

In any case, he will not be in the starting line-up when Borussia Dortmund plays Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-final second leg on Tuesday evening. Dortmund won the first leg 2-1, and the team shone internationally in an almost irritating way, while they struggled for a long time in the Bundesliga.

Steven Gerrard never won the championship either

Reus as a Champions League winner at Wembley, where he failed in the final of the competition against FC Bayern in 2013: That would be the special punchline at the end of a long career that was not refined with titles – apart from two victories in the DFB Cup .

If Reus actually triumphs with BVB, then he would draw level with Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard. He won the Champions League title in 2005 in a spectacular final against AC Milan. However, Gerrard never won a championship with Liverpool. And so Reus involuntarily represents BVB’s stagnation since the last championship title in 2012.

Nevertheless, Reus has always remained Borussia’s kicking inventory. He has experienced all kinds of coaches: Jürgen Klopp, Thomas Tuchel, Lucien Favre, Peter Stöger, Peter Bosz and Edin Terzic. And whenever he showed good form, it became clear what a great footballer he is. Not many international competitors had the ease with which he made his way through the opposing defense.

In his best moments, Marco Reus seemed almost weightless, but also fragile, and this fragility became the biggest obstacle to his career, which could have been much better. His medical records are as extensive as those of few other Bundesliga players.

Above all, however, the failures prevented great success as a national player. Although he has 48 international matches and 15 goals, he was regularly absent when a big tournament was coming up. In 2014, in his prime, Germany became world champions without him.

His status at the club was still undisputed. Even when he was no longer captain, his influence remained immense. The garlands that are now being wound around him provide less information about his importance for Borussia than the episodes that tell of what Reus was able to afford: that he drove his sports car through the streets for years without having a driving license He was piloted in downtown Dortmund. A few words of warning and that was the end of the matter.

Reus is not the only player loyal to his contract

Others may have been more expensive than Marco Reus, who came from Mönchengladbach in 2012 for 17 million euros. But no other player has ever been publicly grilled by this club as much as he was. When the club was in danger of relegation in the 2014/15 season and it was rumored that Bayern were interested in Reus, the Dortmund team dug deep into their wallets to offer him a long-term contract – and what’s more: the club boss Hans-Joachim Watzke spoke of that Reus’ connection to Borussia is comparable to that of Steven Gerrard to Liverpool FC.

Gerrard and Liverpool – Watzke couldn’t get any lower than that at the time. And yet there is something to the comparison: the loyalty to the contract that Reus shows is extraordinary, even if it is not unsurpassed: Thomas Müller has been a professional at FC Bayern for more than sixteen years.

The fact that Reus embodies BVB like no other was particularly evident at the moment of failure. Last year, the offensive player collapsed when BVB lost the championship title against Mainz on the last match day in a sold-out Westfalenstadion.