How Niko Kovac finally led BVB into the Champions League

Niko Kovac led Borussia Dortmund to the Champions League because he fulfilled the club's management's expectations exactly. The coach relies on hard work and not over-complicating football: "Keep it simple."

It was a lackluster 2-1 victory against relegation candidate 1. FC Heidenheim. Mike Tullberg, who was acting as Borussia Dortmund's interim coach following Nuri Sahin's release, celebrated it like a Champions League quarterfinal victory against Inter Milan.

A faction emerged among Borussia Dortmund fans who found Tullberg's celebrations rather over the top. Another group wished their club had given the passionate Dane the vacant coaching job with the first team instead of hiring Niko Kovac.

This group is likely to have grown even larger after Kovac lost his first Bundesliga game with BVB at home against VfB Stuttgart and the next one at VfL Bochum.

A good three months later, Niko Kovac was celebrated with chants in the stadium, certainly even by many who were skeptical at the time. The Borussia Dortmund team, still in eleventh place when the 53-year-old Croatian started, managed to climb to fourth place and thus into the Champions League.

A few minutes before the match against Holstein Kiel, which was ultimately won 3-0, kicked off, the relegation of BVB's second team, coached by Mike Tullberg, from the 3rd division was confirmed.

"I don't feel any satisfaction," Kovac said, referring to the skeptics. Instead, he was "incredibly happy and proud."

Participation in the Club World Cup, which begins in mid-June, seemed to be Dortmund's greatest fortune this season, as there are millions to be earned there, too. However, after the end of the Bundesliga, it's clear that Niko Kovac was the greatest fortune and also skill of the club's management, which hasn't always been able to claim skill in coaching matters in recent years.

Hans-Joachim Watzke as boss, Lars Ricken as managing director of sport, and sporting director Sebastian Kehl were counting on Kovac to get the team moving and going. He was also expected to push them toward greater discipline and bring many players back to their peak performance level.

It took a while, but ultimately, all the bosses' hopes were fulfilled, and they were correspondingly relieved. In his exuberance, Ricken even spoke of "one of the greatest coaching achievements" ever at BVB.

Kovac took a much more sober view. He didn't even see "a reason to celebrate." Borussia Dortmund had always been in the Champions League in recent years, and now they are again.

It's that simple with Niko Kovac, who loves simplicity and therefore often says: "Keep it simple."

But it can't have been that easy, because significantly improving players' physical condition during the season, especially during many midweek games, is quite a feat. Kovac managed it.

The fatigue that had previously become apparent towards the end of games disappeared. Dortmund ran an average of almost five kilometers more per game than under Sahin, and also sprinted significantly more. The hard work, which Kovac repeatedly emphasized during his presentation in early February, paid off, albeit with a delay. BVB lost four of their first six Bundesliga games under Kovac.

The extreme improvement with 22 out of 24 possible points from the last eight games of the season came just in time.

It was rarely magical football; the success was based primarily on the fact that several players, especially Karim Adeyemi and Julian Brandt, found their form again and found their way back to each other.

"Discipline," says Brandt, was primarily what Kovac brought to the team. Captain Emre Can cited "mentality," a factor that has been much talked about at BVB in recent years—when, in fact, there was nothing to celebrate.

• football
• Bundesliga
• Borussia Dortmund