Marco Reus has been playing for Borussia Dortmund for almost ten years. A superstar outside of Germany, the BVB captain rarely receives the highest recognition in his own city. Involuntarily he holds up the mirror to the club and the fans. Nobody wants that.
He’s on cardboard cutouts in foreign countries, he’s on his way to becoming his hometown club’s all-time top scorer, he’s supported his town’s small businesses during the pandemic, he missed out on the 2014 World Cup, the world cries with him and fans of opposing teams give him such appreciation much that they boo him mercilessly. Marco Reus could be a great player, but in his home country, Dortmund, people are skeptical. Because he, the captain of Borussia Dortmund, holds up a mirror to the club with his performances. 32-year-old Marco Reus is Borussia Dortmund. And not everyone is happy with that.
Marco Reus has been a regular guest in a Sainsbury’s supermarket in south London for years. Not as a customer, but as a cardboard cutout greeting the people of the British capital. Not Lionel Messi, not Cristiano Ronaldo, but the Dortmunder has been there for several years and advertises the latest edition of the “FIFA” video game series. “For a lot of people in England, he’s more than a footballer, he’s a style icon,” says British football journalist Andy Brassell, who writes weekly columns on the Bundesliga for the Guardian.
Outside of Germany, Reus and BVB are still much more than the eternal second in the Bundesliga, they have transitioned into pop culture in the best sense of the word. BVB as the other club from Germany, Marco Reus as the big promise and one of the players who have found happiness in their homeland. But the era that still characterizes Reus in Dortmund is one of standstill at a high level. And he, who was born in Dortmund, is also blamed for that. Not abroad, but in his homeland.
The big failure
BVB has long been one of a number of selected clubs that have succeeded in decoupling attraction from sporting success. Under Jürgen Klopp, BVB appeared on the map of European football at precisely the moment when the statics of the game were changing. Social media spread the news of Dortmund’s exploits in the Bundesliga and Champions League all over the world. The Westfalenstadion, which now has a different name, was a place of longing for fans from all over Europe, who made the pilgrimage to the Ruhr area week after week, also to see Marco Reus, the star of the team with the funny llama hairstyle. Stars come and go over the years.
With more and more new coaches and new players, Borussia wants to build on the great years that will hang over the club until someone comes along and at least wins the championship. Satisfies hunger. But with every new year, with every new coach, with every new youngster, hopes dwindle. Also because BVB fails at the crucial moments: Like in 2016, when they were eliminated by Thomas Tuchel against Liverpool in the Europa League or like in 2019, when they lost the championship under Lucien Favre, also because Reus flies off the pitch in the derby against Schalke.
If you see Reus on the pitch, you see Borussia Dortmund. A club that has so much potential and that always seems to lie fallow. His fickleness on the pitch is closely linked to that of BVB. When things go badly and Reus opens up completely unknown spaces for the opponent with his pressing runs that come to nothing, you see BVB in that. When a championship goes wrong again, a game against a relegation candidate is given away, you see Reus, the man without a championship title. Only two cup wins stand behind his name. The first time, in 2017, he injured his cruciate ligament and was out for a long time. At the second, in 2021, he led his team onto the pitch as captain and to victory as conductor. But there is nobody there who can cheer. It’s a pandemic, the world is standing still.
In the game in which Marco Reus could have become a legend, the Dortmund player put the ball through to Henrikh Mkhitaryan in the 65th minute. The Armenian picks it up and corners goalkeeper Iker Casillas in the penalty area. The beer mugs are already flying in the south stand. But the midfielder, who always seems a bit melancholic, puts the ball on the outer post. BVB gives chance over chance. It remains 2-0 for Borussia Dortmund thanks to Reus’ brace in the first half. Too little after the 0:3 in the first leg. BVB is eliminated and does not make it into the semi-finals of the Champions League on this April day in 2014. But Reus made the game of his life.
He never takes part in the tournament in which Marco Reus can become a legend. In the last friendly before the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, he was injured in a duel with an Armenian. Fans around the world cringe and mourn with him. They were looking forward to this player. He should enchant her. The partial tear of the anterior syndesmosis ligament above the left ankle prevents that. Germany wins the title and cheers for Mario Götze. The former Reus teammate who is fighting for his career at Bayern Munich.
When he can play football again, BVB is on the ground. He falls and falls and falls until he can’t go any lower. Borussia Dortmund is no longer a place for Marco Reus. He gets offers from Barcelona, from London, from all over the world. But he stays. Because you “fall together and win together,” he said when he extended his contract in February 2015. “It’s also a decision for life,” he says, and a few weeks later Jürgen Klopp is gone. Then the years of coach changes and player changes begin. Only Reus remains.
He is always from Dortmund. So someone who rarely wins titles, sometimes plays thrillingly, only to then disappear into a hole and never appear in the big games. Eternal failure as a trademark. He keeps hitting. In 346 competitive appearances, he scored 151 goals and 105 assists. Soon he will be his hometown club’s record goalscorer. In the game against Union Berlin last weekend, the fans of the Berliners, who are finally allowed back into the stadium, boo him mercilessly. Reus enjoys it. The soccer player Reus has earned it. Man remains alien to many.
In Dortmund everyone knows a story about Marco Reus. He is one of them and yet remained a stranger to them. The stories that one hears are not about the footballer Reus, but about the person who suddenly appears as an extra in the lives of others, almost embarrassingly touches them with his disarming normality and then disappears back into the world of the stars.
He cares about the city, cares about his homeland, where the harshness of the old steel workers and beer town has burned deep into people’s souls. He cares about the people from the pot. In the first phase of the pandemic, he is supporting local small businesses with an aid campaign. Help reaches the Huckarde Women’s Center or the Konrad Klepping Vocational College, his old school, among others. None of this has the glamor of the “We Kick Corona” initiative of his national team colleagues Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka. But he was there when help was needed.
Nevertheless, he never really arrived in the hearts of Dortmunders. He holds the mirror up to the fans of Borussia too much. He’s what they’re looking for, which is identity, and he’s what they don’t want to understand, the symbol of the perceived waste of talent and resources that is preventing the club from progressing. Even his sporting future in Dortmund is being questioned. There’s talk of a “fair-weather footballer” and someone who doesn’t manage to create an identity. That doesn’t seem to have arrived abroad yet.
“It’s as if Reus and the branding of Dortmund coolness and friendliness go hand in hand,” says Brassell, the “Guardian” journalist. “He’s still a great player for the ‘FIFA generation’.” Brassell turns to Ronaldo, the real one from Brazil. He also went through many valleys in his career. “People talk about what he could have been and not what he was. You could almost compare Reus to him,” he says: “But then it’s very different. Almost as if you were celebrating him for what it could have been but never quite was.”
Now Reus is reaching for a trophy in the Europa League that Dortmund have never won. After the pandemic, in May, he could present him as captain on Borsigplatz. It starts on Thursday with the game against Glasgow Rangers (6:45 p.m., live on RTL+).