By Heinz Büse, dpa I Monday, April 10, 2023
DORTMUND – Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke has said that the attack with explosives on the team bus ahead of a Champions League match in 2017 was the main reason why they parted ways with coach Thomas Tuchel at the end of the season.
Watzke spoke out in a Sky TV documentary titled “The attack – assault on BVB – which was to aired later on Monday, the day before the sixth anniversary of the incident.
Then Dortmund player Marc Bartra said he has fond memories of his time at the club despite injuries sustained in the incident of which he said: “I had never seen so much horror.”
On April 11, 2017, three explosives detonated close to the team bus after it had left the hotel for the game against French league club Monaco in Dortmund’s stadium, injuring a policeman on a motorcycle and Bartra, who had to undergo arm surgery.
A few days later a suspect was arrested after speculating on a drop of Dortmund’s shares on the stock market. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2018.
The match was postponed until the following day and played then, against fierce opposition from Tuchel who said after the game which Dortmund lost 3-2 that “We wished for more time to get over it. We weren’t given this time.”
Watzke said in the documentary the club had no choice: “At the end of the day there was only one truth for us. Either we play tomorrow evening or we withdraw. Politics had the same expectations, that you don’t bow before a terror attack.”
He named the incident the key for parting ways with Tuchel, who is now at Bayern Munich.
“A lot of things broke down – in many areas. A lot of things broke between the coach and me. Otherwise it probably wouldn’t have come to the separation in the summer,” Watzke said.
Bartra, who now plays at Turkey’s Trapzonspor, said that “no one wants to experience what happened to me.
“On the other hand such much love came out of it, which I experienced from my team-mates and the fans. That gives me an unbelievably nice feeling. The images gave me a lot of strength. I am still an admirer of Borussia Dortmund.”
Looking back at the moments after the explosions, he said: “I only thought of my daughter in this moment. I didn’t think about football, only about surviving. You can’t put the expression of my team-mates into words. I had never seen so much horror.”
