The Best Defender To Every Play At Dortmund - Blog Posts

It’s conspiracy theory time.

We all saw this picture. We all wondered what it meant. We thought, “Why is sitting like that? Staring like that? Will he be getting a new contract?” And now, knowing what we know, I think he knew. He wouldn’t be coming back to Borussia Dortmund. It was his last match at the Yellow Wall.

Here’s my flimsy evidence: That photo was taken on May 18. Terzic and Mats had already been clashing for the entire year over tactics, and probably much more. BVB Central reported through Bild, that the relationship with Terzic was considered “cold” on March 6. Even though Bild is not entirely reliable, it was probably reliable on this.

Reports also came through of Terzic and Mats having a massive fight shortly before the UCL final, person consequences being threatened. This might have happened because of the brutally honest interview Mats gave three days before the final, which would have placed their fight around May 28 or 29, most likely completely destroying their relationship beyond repair.

Back to the day that photo was taken, May 18. By that point, according to reports, many of Dortmund’s players, including almost the entirety of the senior players, including Mats of course, would have been heavily against Terzic. If it is true that he essentially staged a coup, it would have been Terzic and the Board vs the players of Borussia Dortmund.

It was the last match of the year, we got fifth place, barely scraping champions league football, the first time we hadn’t gotten it since the disastrous 2014-2015 season. A vocal player like Mats would not have let that happen without complaint. Since Terzic was the manager, in charge of the tactics, he would have made sure he was unhappy with how the team performed all season along with the tactics given to them.

After the end of the match, we also got this photo:

Marco pushed Mats up to the front. Does that mean they knew he probably wouldn’t be getting an extension and wanted him to get a goodbye? Marco got an entire game dedicated to him, tifo and all, but Mats got nothing. He probably wouldn’t have minded too much, he knew it was Marco’s day, and he seem to be a pretty chill guy.

Marco might have done it anyway, but it would have made sense for Mats to get his standing ovation because there wouldn’t be another game for him to get one from.

That’s the end of my mindless rambling, Mats knew he wouldn’t have spent another year with the Dortmund because the contract extension was always off the table.