The final score was Borussia Moenchengladbach Under 13s 3 Borussia Dortmund Under 13s 0. The league leaders had been beaten, and in the losers’ dressing room the Dortmund coach was expressing his 'Enttauschung' – disappointment.
Some of these boys, born in 2000, stared at the floor, some at the ceiling. Others stared at the coach, a quietly-spoken 52-year-old former British soldier who has been nurturing teenage talent at Borussia Dortmund for almost two decades: Gary Gordon.
'I wasn’t happy, but I was calm,' Gordon would say later in the day. 'My last words to them were to enjoy the rest of the weekend.'
Youth training schemer: Gary Gordon guides the Under 13 sideThe team minibus had been on the go since 8.30 that Saturday morning and Gordon was still reflecting on Moenchengladbach at 6pm. He was walking away from the Westfalenstadion then, after Dortmund’s first team had eased five past Freiburg to remain second in the Bundesliga.
There had been a few parents braving the snow in Moenchengladbach; there were 80,000 to see the first team.
Of its 16 names, five had come through the youth ranks Gordon has been part of since 1992. He has been there at various levels; now he helps oversee a system headed by one of its products, Lars Ricken.
Of those five former youth-team players, three were found within Dortmund’s city limits: Mario Gotze, Marco Reus and Kevin Grosskreutz. All three are German internationals.
Leap of faith: Mario Gotze is 'special', says GordonGordon and the club are proud that more than 20 players across this period have come from the city itself. And of that trio, Gordon considers Gotze to be the special one, a playmaker capable of shaping the highest standard matches.
He already is – a la Messi at Barcelona, Germany deployed the 20 year-old, 5ft 9in Gotze at centre- forward in their most recent World Cup qualifiers against Kazakhstan. Gotze scored in both games.
At club level, Gotze, whose 'balance, sway, a way of moving that is like Bruce Lee', according to Gordon, is the No. 10 in a youthful Dortmund team managed by Jurgen Klopp that is sending a shiver of excitement through the Champions League.
The style with which Dortmund played at Manchester City in October made English eyes focus. On Wednesday the reigning German champions face Malaga in the last eight and Gordon thinks Malaga are “a team Dortmund can beat'.
Talking a good game: Gordon during the Borussia Moenchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund U13 matchIf so, Klopp’s team would be in the semi-finals. From there you can see the final at Wembley. And that would mean a lot to Gary Gordon because, as he explains: 'I grew up in Wembley.
'The old stadium was there then, it was a wonderful stadium. I went to a few games as a kid, all kinds of games. It was a dream to go to such a ground as a child. I think the last time I was there Wigan won the rugby league.'
Are Dortmund capable of being in this season’s final on May 25th?
'Oh, yeah. The team has developed from last season. I think they’ve grown up.'
Gary Gordon grew up on the outskirts of north London in the 1960s and 70s. He played football locally but never broke through professionally and joined the 1st Queen’s Regiment at 16 as a junior. He still had hopes to be a No. 9.
'I was chosen to play for the Army juniors in Aldershot,' he recalls. 'But I messed up. I was a bad child, I wasn’t very punctual.
'But I stayed in the Army for 4 and a half years, moved to Germany when I was in the Army, to Dortmund. That was 1978-82. I made a lot of friends and the amateur football here was a good standard. They paid good money.
'It was worth staying. Some of my friends in the Army stayed and became top amateur boxers, athletes. We all felt it was worth taking a chance.
'Some English boys look undernourished — you need soup. Food is important'
'I became quite well-known in Dortmund as an amateur - for OSG Victoria. They liked me, they were very open - and are very open - in Germany. I never noticed any racism.
'I can see how football changes culture. I was maybe the only black footballer in Dortmund and the city population is 600,000. I was top scorer at amateur level and I went for trials at Borussia Dortmund. I was 22, 23. But the coach wanted younger players.
'Then I met my wife, Petra, had children. My first child, Andre, was born around that time of the trial and I had to work. It would have been nice to play professionally, but no. And Dortmund were nearly relegated in 1982.'
Gordon took what work there was – on building sites if necessary. His income was supplemented by wages from amateur football, though he also boxed – light welterweight - in old west Berlin “in the Checkpoint Charlie days'.
Having learnt German he decided to resume his education and then entered the equivalent of the German NHS, where he works today, as well as coaching Dortmund’s youngsters.
He has three sons – his middle son Daniel played for Borussia Dortmund and is now at Karlsruhe – while Andre, 30, is a coach and Robin, 20, is recovering from a knee injury and playing in Germany’s fifth division.
The end product: The Borussia Dortmund first XI have become one of the most respected teams in EuropeIt was while watching Andre receiving a coaching lesson at Borussia two decades ago that Gary Gordon stepped in.
'I saw a coach trying to show a striker how to move into the box and score. I thought:
‘That’s not going to work.’
'The coach was a nice person but he didn’t know football. So I walked on and said: ‘Can I show you?’
That was it. The coach asked me to be his assistant.
'It was easier for me to progress because I had a name in Dortmund.
Glory days: Paul Lambert won the Champions League with Borussia Dortmmund'It just developed year after year. In all that time I’ve never signed a contract. I’m just like a weed, hanging in there. I got my qualifications, and they’ve offered me a full-time job, but it’s 2-3 year contracts and there’s not enough security in that.
'Over the years my position has changed, first assistant, then coach, now I have seven people and I say what I want to see coached. There’s no big title, I’m just called trainer/coach. I’m normal, just Gary.'
Gordon has witnessed three distinct phases in Borussia Dortmund. From 1992, when he first intervened in a coaching session, to 1997, when Paul Lambert was part of the team that won the European Cup; from ’97 to 2005, when the club overspent and almost went bankrupt – 'there was so little money that we weren’t able to send transport to pick up Nuri Sahin when he was young.'
And from 2005 to now, when the club has stabilised, returned to youth development and appointed Klopp.
'Klopp is a modern coach, a housewife’s favourite, smart,” says Gordon. “He has a young team, good people behind him and has his own dynamic. The team is hungry, very hungry. He’s got that fire, that flame, that’s what you see on the sidelines. He’s very popular. He’s got something.'
There have also been phases for Gordon at the club.
'There was also a change for me here about eight years ago when Mario Gotze first came,' he says.
'Mario was of a different level to any player before. The club looked at me and said: ‘You’re good.’
'I was a general coach, now I’m looking at individuals. I can experiment, I have freedom and authority now within the club.
'We want boys to be individuals. I’m looking at a 14 year-old and assessing what he’ll be like at 19, I’m not picking an U14 team to win the next game.
'If we have a defender, for example, we ask if he has attacking qualities. Could he play in midfield, on the wing? It’s the modern way but I think it’s going to develop further. I don’t think we’ll have traditional, tall defenders. I think we’ll have footballers at the back.
'The club is open, they don’t make rules about coaching. It’s up to each coach. That way the child goes through different systems. We don’t drill them into formations set by the first team, the way some clubs do. Ajax? I haven’t had a team lose to Ajax in six years.
Passing on his experience: Gordon talks to his U13 team'We believe in flexibility. That way you bring more players through. If you keep a right-back a right back then there’ll come along another right back who’s maybe better. Then the first one won’t play and he has no alternative position.'
Dortmund are far from unique in their approach, but it is reassuring to hear a youth coach say things like: “Children see things now they shouldn’t see, we don’t control them like we used to.
'But they must be well-behaved here and at school, we look at their school reports. I can’t relax and let them fall through school.
'I tell the boys to take themselves seriously, not overly-so, but I don’t want any clowns from the back of the class. I want them at the front, hands up, and I tell their parents that. We will never have a dumb footballer.'
On the road to Moenchengladbach, Gordon also had a theory on the decline of home-made soup, society and burn-out.
'I see some English teams playing and to me some of the boys look under-nourished. How is their bone structure? Will it be strong enough when they get older and the really hard tackles come?
Showing the way to sucess: Gordon gives instructions from the sidelines'Food is hugely important to young bodies – you need soup. If one of my boys doesn’t eat his greens, he doesn’t play.
'At 12 we have the goalkeepers’ wrists measured so we know what height they’re going to be. If they’re not going to hit 6ft, they’re not going to make it professionally and you could waste a few years and hopes finding out.
'But sometimes you do have to wait - look at Didier Drogba, at 18 he was playing right-back. So it’s difficult know.
'You have to look at the character, that can help. You look at their eating habits, do they eat a lot of greens, because when the tackling starts getting tough and you’ve frail bones, you’ll not last.'
Using DNA to measure a 12 year-old’s future size is just one of many changes Gordon has seen over his time. He has also seen youth coaching emerge from sometimes amateurish surroundings to the feeding frenzy around gifted boys today. As he says:
'We played Barcelona in an U-11 indoor tournament in Poland recently and Barca had already brought in a 10-year-old Turkish striker from Frankfurt.'
There is another Barcelona connection in Germany now. Gordon is strongly in agreement with the feeling that the Bundesliga is Europe’s rising power – an idea franked by Pep Guardiola going to Bayern Munich next season.
'I was shocked and I was pleased,' Gordon says of when he heard the Guardiola news, “it’ll change the way of coaching again because it won’t just be Barcelona again. He’s going to be able to bring in different players and that will take the Bundesliga onto the next level internationally.'
Even before talking about Guardiola, Gordon had said: “The first, second and third divisions in Germany are the best in the world. The league structure, financially, the way players are developed.
There are loads of players coming through – England have one keeper but Germany will never have a goalkeeping problem. Almenia Aachen in the third division have a brilliant keeper. He’s 19.
'Look at Spain, financially it’s very weak and there are two teams. Barcelona can go up and down the country and pull in the best players. They have Academies all over. How can Celta Vigo or whoever compete?
Watching on: Gordon watches training in Dortmund'It’s the same in Italy. How often do Roma fill their stadium? Union Berlin v Hertha Berlin here, in the second division, got 75,000 and the standard was good.
'In England there’s these people buying clubs, one-man ownership. It’s not sound. There’s not a foundation, the owner can just pull out. Here they’re very proud of the ownership model. Everybody supports their local club.'
In terms of Champions League quarter-finalists, it is Germany 2 England 0 this season.
Of course this could be merely a moment in time, rather than a shift in power. That is not Gary Gordon’s brief anyway, his role is to develop boys into professionals in the long- term and he was delighted that last week the club agreed that a record 15 of his U-13 squad would be kept on at U-14.
Gordon has praise for the youth systems at Barcelona and Manchester United but there is clearly a lot of thought at Borussia Dortmund.
That in turn is why the club is changing perceptions.
'The big difference from around 1992,' Gordon concludes, 'is that the club is well-known, not only in Germany but internationally. And it is taken seriously.'
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