Borussia Dortmund

Lore & Background

Founded in 1909 by eighteen football players from Dortmund, they are nicknamed Die Schwarzgelben (The Black and Yellow), for the colours used in the club's crest. They hold a long-standing rivalry with Ruhr neighbours Schalke 04, against whom they contest the Revierderby. They also contest Der Klassiker with FC Bayern Munich. Dortmund is the largest sports club by membership in Germany after FC Bayern Munich, with about 218,000 members, making Borussia Dortmund the fifth largest sports club by membership in the world. The club also has a women's handball team. Since 1974, Dortmund have played their home games at the Westfalenstadion; the stadium is the largest in Germany, the Yellow Wall, a standing terrace in the South Stand, is the largest of its kind in Europe, and Dortmund has the highest average attendance of any association football club in the world.

In Their Own Story

The rain fell steadily on the BayArena pitch as the clock ticked past the eighty-minute mark. The score was level, a tense stalemate between the red-and-black stripes of Leverkusen and the black-and-yellow fury of Dortmund. In the stands, the silence was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic chanting that had grown into a roar. A Leverkusen midfielder won a loose ball in midfield, sending it forward with desperate precision. The winger sprinted down the flank, eyes fixed on the goal, knowing that one mistake would mean another season of 'almost'. As he cut inside, the crowd held its breath, waiting for history to be written.

Reader's Guide

Dortmund is the second most decorated German football team; domestically, they have eight league championships, five DFB-Pokals, and six DFL-Supercups. Internationally, they won the UEFA Champions League in 1997, the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1966, and the Intercontinental Cup in 1997, in addition, to being the runners-up in the Champions League in 2013 and 2024 and UEFA Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup) in 1993 and 2002. Under the directorship of Michael Zorc in the 2010s, Dortmund cultivated a reputation for spotting and developing young talent, and have remained focused on developing a youth system. As of 2024, Dortmund had the second most revenue across football clubs in Germany, and the 12th most revenue across all football teams in the world, per Deloitte's Football Money League.

Did You Know?

• The club was founded on 19 December 1909 by a group of young men unhappy with the Catholic church-sponsored Trinity Youth.
• The name Borussia is Latin for Prussia but was taken from Borussia beer from the nearby Borussia brewery in Dortmund.
• Dortmund's Friedhelm Konietzka scored the first-ever Bundesliga goal a minute into the match against Werder Bremen in 1963.
• In 1997, Dortmund won the UEFA Champions League by defeating Juventus 3–1 in the final at the Olympiastadion in Munich.