Edin Terzic reached a huge milestone as his Borussia Dortmund side won a massive title encounter with Union Berlin.
The 40-year-old celebrated his 50th Bundesliga game as a manager with his 32nd victory. This meant no other Dortmund coach has won as many matches in their first 50 Bundesliga games in charge than the current Black and Yellows coach.
Terzic’s most recent victory over Union Berlin this weekend meant Dortmund’s kept the gap to league leaders Bayern Munich to just two points with seven matches to go in the Bundesliga season.
The German coach of course is in his second spell at the club after previously being made interim coach for the rest of the 2020/21 season, following Lucien Favre being sacked in December 2020. 14 of Terzic’s 32 Bundesliga wins were picked up in that season with the ex-West Ham assistant coach finishing the season with seven wins in a row.
He also helped the Black and Yellows to their first DFB Pokal trophy since 2017.
Many Dortmund fans wanted the then interim manager to stay on, but Dortmund’s board decided to bring in Marco Rose from Borussia Mönchengladbach. After Rose failed to satisfy the Dortmund board in his first season they mutually agreed to part ways meaning Terzic could be restored to the manager role on a permanent basis.
Since then the German has won 18 of his 27 Bundesliga matches to give Dortmund a chance of their first title in over a decade. To put this record of 32 wins in his first 50 Bundesliga matches at Dortmund into perspective, it is 10 wins better than well loved former manager Jürgen Klopp got in his first 50.
Borussia Dortmund was the first managerial role the 40-year-old took and to be fighting the juggernaut that is Bayern Munich to the death in his second full season in charge is a massive achievement for the young manager.
Dortmund have appointed many well renowned Bundesliga coaches in recent years including now Bayern coach, Thomas Tuchel, but they may have found the man who can take them to the title once again amongst their ranks.
With four home games in their remaining seven matches, Terzic will be hoping to finish the season strongly to have any chance of beating the Rekordmeister.
Dortmund teams in past seasons have been criticised for their inconsistency and amount of surprise defeats. Terzic’s Dortmund were unbeaten in 2023 until last week’s loss to the league leaders, showing how consistent the 40-year-old has made the challengers.
Many people had doubts that the inexperienced coach may struggle being the main man, but Terzic is flourishing in the Dortmund dugout.
GGFN | Stuart McCracken
