Formed: 1909
Nickname: Die Schwarzgelben (The Black-Yellows)
UEFA club competition honours (runners-up in brackets)
• European Champion Clubs’ Cup: 1997
• UEFA Cup: (1993, 2002)
• UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup: 1966
• UEFA Super Cup: (1998)
Domestic honours (most recent triumph in brackets)
• League title: 7 (2011)
• DFB-Pokal: 2 (1989)
History
• While many German teams were founded as gymnastics clubs, Dortmund were created solely as a football entity in 1909. They enjoyed some good results in the 1930s and 1940s but were unable to escape the shadow cast by arch-rivals FC Schalke 04. In 1947, a memorable 3-2 win in the Westphalia Championship final marked the first time the Black-Yellows had overcome the Royal Blues.
• In 1956, a crowd of 75,000 watched Dortmund win their first German title with a 4-2 defeat of Karlsruher SC in Berlin’s Olympiastadion. BVB defended their crown the following year with a 4-1 defeat of Hamburger SV with exactly the same team as the previous year, a feat never accomplished before or since. Dortmund had to wait for continental success, however, having been knocked out of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup by Manchester United FC in 1956 and AC Milan the following year.
• Dortmund started the inaugural Bundesliga season as German champions after winning their third title in 1963. The club lifted the domestic Cup in 1965 and went on to win their first European silverware the next season when they defeated Liverpool FC 2-1 after extra time to clinch the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. However, a steady decline ensued which included a four-year spell in the 2. Bundesliga from 1972.
• Revived by a 1989 DFB-Pokal Cup victory, Dortmund became a leading force in German football in the mid-1990s. Under the guidance of Ottmar Hitzfeld, BVB won successive titles in 1995 and 1996 having reached the 1993 UEFA Cup final where they lost to Juventus. Hitzfeld’s side sealed a sweet revenge against the Italian giants in the 1997 UEFA Champions League final, triumphing 3-1 in Munich. They followed it up with victory in the European/South American Cup and Dortmund were again Bundesliga champions in 2002, but then endured another fall from grace.
• The club turned to their traditionally strong youth department in the years that followed and coach Jürgen Klopp almost took his side into the European places in his first season, 2008/09. In the following campaign, the Black-Yellows finished fifth and consolidated their position back among Germany’s elite, but it was in the 2010/11 campaign that Dortmund lifted their seventh domestic title. Klopp’s young and exciting side featured stars such as Mats Hummels, Kevin Grosskreutz, Shinji Kagawa and the highly-rated Mario Götze.
Club records
Most appearances: Michael Zorc (463)
Most goals: Alfred Preissler (168)
Record victory: Borussia Dortmund 11-1 DSC Arminia Bielefeld (Bundesliga, 6 November 1982)
Record defeat: VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach 12-0 Borussia Dortmund (Bundesliga, 29 April 1978)
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