Henrikh Mkhitaryan

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Some people on here said Dortmund will be a midtable club soon, so in comparison to that, calling them a favorite to win seems very bold. Götze most definitely has way more potential than Mkhitaryan and probably will be a better player the next years, but he wasn't as influential in Dortmund's success over the last three years as other players in the team and Mkhitaryan is a great player who has the ability to be as good as Götze was in the last 2 years.

Dortmund signed three quality players and were a great team without Götze, good enough to beat anyone in europe. With most of the young players in the team (Hummels, Gündogan, Reus, Bender, Subotic) probably getting better each season, Sahin after a full pre-season maybe back to his best and hopefully Lewandowski acting professional and not like a crybaby, Dortmund could be even stronger and will have more squad depth to compete in all competitions.

Do you think any of the english teams improved enough to be considered as a favorite ahead of those 4? I'd probably pick Barca, Bayern and Real slightly ahead of Chelsea, Dortmund and Juve right now. No idea how to rate United with Moyes as manager and no important signings so far and no idea where to put City, in theory a great team, in reality so far a shocking team in europe.


If they can keep hold of their best players they might challenge Bayern more strongly in the league next season?
They got to the final of the Champions League last year, if they get a decent draw they could go far again.
 
If they can keep hold of their best players they might challenge Bayern more strongly in the league next season?
None of the players will leave this season. Lewandowksi might if he decides to go abroad and a crazy offer comes in, but it doesn't look like that.

I wrote a lot about it in the Bundesliga 13/14 thread. I highly doubt Bayern can get as many points as last season ever again and Dortmund were a bit unlucky with their league results, so the gap will be a lot closer. If Dortmund's signings work well, they are a brilliant team that can push Bayern for the title, yes. It's great that they signed the new players early enough to have them take part in the pre-season and Dortmund has an incredibly easy start to the season, so they might be a few points ahead of Bayern after 8 games. Then it gets interesting.
 
I wrote about it in the Bundesliga 13/14 thread. I highly doubt Bayern can get as many points as last season ever again and Dortmund were a bit unlucky with their league results, so the gap will be a lot closer. If Dortmund's signings work well, they are a brilliant team that can push Bayern for the title, yes. It's great that they signed the new players early enough to have them take part in the pre-season and Dortmund has an incredibly easy start to the season, so they might be a few points ahead of Bayern after 8 games. Then it gets interesting.


Could be a lot closer next season then.
 
It's also interesting that Dortmund atm is at a net spent of only 6,6m € this season. So I wouldn't rule out that there might be one or two more players coming in but probably cheaper ones to improve the squad depth.
 
It's also interesting that Dortmund atm is at a net spent of only 6,6m € this season. So I wouldn't rule out that there might be one or two more players coming in but probably cheaper ones to improve the squad depth.
They should give a huge bonus to Reus and Gündogan for contract extensions without release clauses. That would be way more important than signing another player.
 
Well that's happening anyways, at least with Gündogan as far as I know.

They have to up increase the contracts of quite a few players in the future anyways and it will be included in their wage budget for this season, so I doubt that spending money on new players excludes contract improvements for other players.
 
There is a great article in a german newspaper about this transfer today.

Apparently he was more or less owned by three of the richest "businessmen". two russians and one armenian.
The armenian part owner Hayrapetyan is now going to court for punching his bodyguard to death.
His mother is the head of the armenian FA and his sister is the assistant of platini at FIFA. both had to pull their weight to get him out of contract at shaktar.

According to the article he hired mino raiola to get away from his old club after he fled to vienna because he is known for being the toughest agent around...

the entire article reads like a movie script.

here is the link for the german speaking redcafe fellows:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/henrik-mkhitaryan-zum-bvb-der-verwegenste-transfer-1.1715032
 
There is a great article in a german newspaper about this transfer today.

Apparently he was more or less owned by three of the richest "businessmen". two russians and one armenian.
The armenian part owner Hayrapetyan is now going to court for punching his bodyguard to death.
His mother is the head of the armenian FA and his sister is the assistant of platini at FIFA. both had to pull their weight to get him out of contract at shaktar.

According to the article he hired mino raiola to get away from his old club after he fled to vienna because he is known for being the toughest agent around...

the entire article reads like a movie script.

here is the link for the german speaking redcafe fellows:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/henrik-mkhitaryan-zum-bvb-der-verwegenste-transfer-1.1715032
Wow, thanks a lot, brilliant read.

Just one detail, his bodyguard punched a oppositional politician to death in a restaurant and the bodyguard is going to court. Hayrapetyan is president of the armenian FA, btw, and owns an armenian football club and was part owner of Mkhitaryan because of that. Crazy stuff.
 
Indeed very interesting. The only thing that would worry me as a Dortmund supporter is that Railoa is his new agent, I guess Dortmund won't have much fun with Henno for long.

The article seems to be wrong though in one regard. They say Railoa is being viewed as a persona non grata by Juventus Turin but, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought he made the deal with Pogba to Juve happen, didn't he?
 
There is a great article in a german newspaper about this transfer today.

Apparently he was more or less owned by three of the richest "businessmen". two russians and one armenian.
The armenian part owner Hayrapetyan is now going to court for punching his bodyguard to death.
His mother is the head of the armenian FA and his sister is the assistant of platini at FIFA. both had to pull their weight to get him out of contract at shaktar.

According to the article he hired mino raiola to get away from his old club after he fled to vienna because he is known for being the toughest agent around...

the entire article reads like a movie script.

here is the link for the german speaking redcafe fellows:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/henrik-mkhitaryan-zum-bvb-der-verwegenste-transfer-1.1715032

Explains why it was difficult for Liverpool to get him. Not sure if other leagues have rules when it comes to players have multiple owners. For PL clubs it's a very difficult signing process.
 
Explains why it was difficult for Liverpool to get him. Not sure if other leagues have rules when it comes to players have multiple owners. For PL clubs it's a very difficult signing process.


Players owned by multiple parties is never easy.

But just out of interest which are the special rules for English clubs concerning these third party owned players?
 
Shaktar has made some good money in the transfer window. 30m odd for each of the lad who went to City and now this
 
Explains why it was difficult for Liverpool to get him. Not sure if other leagues have rules when it comes to players have multiple owners. For PL clubs it's a very difficult signing process.

Other quotes from Dortmund officials say that this was by far the most difficult transfer they ever had.
 


Thanks. No idea how the rules regarding third parties are in Germany but according to SZ one of the reasons why Mkhitaryan pushed for the transfer was to get rid of those third party owners who were all a bit shady, so I guess it's a bit of the same for German clubs that they can't have players that are in part owned by third parties.
 
UEFA is working hard to get battle third-party ownership within its jurisdiction, for the record. When and if it will happen in practice is yet to be seen.
 
Doesn't third-party ownership mean that a company or a person paid the player for shares on his transfer rights? I think with Mkhitaryan it was just the usual former club gets a share on the sell-on fee which happens quite a lot in europe as well (Colo-Colo got 30% when Leverkusen sold Vidal to Leverkusen or Bayern got a few millions when Cologne sold Podolski to Arsenal) and isn't a problem with the FA. In Mkhitaryan's case the problem was that his former clubs are owned by rich and influencial oligarchs and they wanted him to go to a club that pays more than Dortmund, according to the article above Anzhi wanted to buy him for €35m.
 
Played 45minutes had a nice goal an assist and set up another chance for Lewandowski where the latter should've scored but hit the post. Great first game for him, but it was only Basel.




No10
 
Played 45minutes had a nice goal an assist and set up another chance for Lewandowski where the latter should've scored but hit the post. Great first game for him, but it was only Basel.

Pretty strong opponent for a pre-season game after only one week of training and a few new players without any training with the team. Thought it was really impressive.
 
Well yes, the game was impressive for a preseason friendly, but that's all it was. Next season's upcoming challenges will be so much tougher, no one will care about it in a couple of days.

Also Dortmund's players (including Mkhitaryan, since they reached an agreement with him quite early - according to Klopp) had gotten detailled personal instructions from their coaches for their summer vacations, so they did not exactly have to start from scratch.
 
Yeah read that as well. Very interesting. Looks like Liverpool lost the race for Mkhitaryan weeks ago (or never had a chance at all).
 
Was also interested to see they used Aubameyang on both flanks, but not down the middle.

I guess they fancy having him as a back up/altenative to Reus as an inside forward.

He could have scored within like 2 minutes of coming on, but hit the post from close range.
 
I reckon he will wind up a one season Dortmund player, as the big guns will come knocking if he shines in Bundesliga this year.
 
I reckon he will wind up a one season Dortmund player, as the big guns will come knocking if he shines in Bundesliga this year.
He signed a four year contract without a release clause, why do you think Dortmund will sell him next season?
 
Aubameyang himself said somewhere that Klopp wants to use him mainly as a left midfielder. However in the end everything will depend on how Aubameyang performs. If he's doing great Klopp will find a place for him somewhere. And if he does not want to use Mkhitaryan or Reus as Lewandowski'S backup Aubameyang will probably be first choice there too (gotta give Schieber credit for his enthusiasm and his workrate, but so far it seems like his skill with the ball is simply not good enough for Dortmund).
 
He signed a four year contract without a release clause, why do you think Dortmund will sell him next season?


These things don't mean much when you've been effectively reduced to being a feeder to the bigger European clubs.
 
They do, if the club isn't in need of the money? Sahin and Götze left because of release clauses and Kagawa only had one year left on his contract. Lewandowski already wanted to leave last summer but is still at the club and will probably go on a free next season.

He might not stay forever, but I doubt he leaves before 2016.
 
I reckon he will wind up a one season Dortmund player, as the big guns will come knocking if he shines in Bundesliga this year.

These things don't mean much when you've been effectively reduced to being a feeder to the bigger European clubs.

It' really amazing how you can say that after they just turned down around €25m for Lewandowski so that he will leave for free next year.
 
It' really amazing how you can say that after they just turned down around €25m for Lewandowski so that he will leave for free next year.


Thats a unique situation in which the decided to not capitulate to their chief Bundesliga rivals. They don't seem to have a good record hanging on to their big name players, and this would be no different. If Madrid come sniffing around and unsettle the player to where he publicly requests a transfer, then it will be difficult to keep him.
 
Why would that be no different? Götze and Sahin left because they had exit clauses, Kagawa was sold because he had one year left on his contract and they already lined up his replacement in Reus. I don't see any of that being the case with Aubameyang.
 
Oh, my mistake. However what I said applies for Mkhitaryan just as well.
 
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