In the summer of 2017, Borussia Dortmund flipped 20 million euros on the table to iron Maximilian Philipp from SC Freiburg – an investment that BVB did not see as a lasting success.
After a good debut season with nine goals and two assists in 20 league games, Philipp barely got a foot on the ground in 2018/19. This was followed by the departure in the direction of Dynamo Moscow, which at least flushed the majority of the investment back into BVB’s coffers.
Philipp is now playing football again in the Bundesliga, where he will face his former club from Dortmund on Saturday (3:30 p.m.) in a VfL Wolfsburg shirt. Before the duel, which was so explosive for him personally, the 28-year-old spoke in an interview with “Ruhr news“about his sobering time at BVB.
Under coach Peter Bosz, the team started the 2017/18 season “incredibly well”, shone “with a lot of ball possession and extremely high pressing” and played “very risky”, according to Philipp – an attitude that the offensive player, according to his own statement, ” was very good”.
This is also underpinned by the statistics that Philipp already had five goals and two assists after nine matchdays. But then BVB’s winning streak came to an end.
“But at some point the slump came. It was as if we were deciphered. The opponents knew how to play against us and we didn’t play that well anymore,” said Philipp in retrospect.
BVB “still have a chance at the title”
He himself was also less able to shine and, to make matters worse, he sustained a serious injury to his patella tendon shortly before Christmas 2017, which made him absent for months.
After Bosz’s dismissal and Peter Stöger taking office, BVB had to tremble about qualifying for the Champions League until the last day of the game. This succeeded by a hair’s breadth.
Philipp currently sees the situation at BVB, which is in second place in the table, much more positively – and that despite nine points behind FC Bayern. “They still have a chance of winning the title – not that big, but the chance is there,” said the man from Wolfsburg.