To say that up until this past week, the off-season transfer window had not been going in Borussia Dortmund’s favour would have been a grave understatement. Following the departures of club legends Marco Reus and Mats Hummels, Die Schwarzgelbe failed to secure the permanent signings of Ian Maatsen and Jadon Sancho. Both had been at Signal Iduna Park on loan deals from Chelsea and Manchester United respectively and were among Dortmund’s most impactful players on their run to the Champions League final.
Although Dortmund did land Waldemar Anton from VfB Stuttgart for €22.5 million, this was regarded as a solid signing - but not a game-changer or anything like that. However, a week and a half after that signing, everything changed.
Earlier this week, Dortmund signed Guinean striker Serhou Guirassy, a teammate of Anton’s at MHPArena for the past two seasons. Prior to arriving at Stuttgart, Guirassy had never scored more than 10 top-flight league goals in a season - and even that came in the relatively weaker Ligue 1 with Rennes in the 2020-21 season.
In Guirassy’s first season at Stuttgart which was spent on loan from Rennes, he beat that tally with 11 goals in the Bundesliga despite playing in just 22 league matches. From a team perspective, however, Stuttgart struggled all season long and only avoided relegation after beating Hamburg SV in a two-legged playoff. With this in mind, no one could possibly have predicted what would come next.
Stuttgart would turn Guirassy’s loan deal into a permanent one in the ensuing off-season, signing him from the Brittany-based club for €9 million - a laughably low figure in retrospect. Guirassy went on to have a breakout season in just about the most spectacular expression of the phrase, scoring 28 league goals in as many matches and leading Stuttgart to a second-place league finish. It was the southwestern club’s highest league finish since their stunning triumph in the 2006-07 season.
Heading into the off-season, it really did seem as though the sky was the limit for Guirassy. A move to a more glamorous club would not have been out of the question; however, while Dortmund could be classified as such a club, not many were expecting them to make such a splash in the transfer market. After all, this was a club which had somewhat deservedly garnered a reputation for consistently fumbling in the transfer window with the most notable recent examples being the sales of Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland to Real Madrid and Manchester City respectively for transfer fees far below their true values. However, this time it was Dortmund coming out on top of a transfer deal.
Dortmund brought Guirassy to the club for the stunningly low transfer fee of €18 million. Considering the fact that Guirassy could easily have commanded twice that figure, this has to be seen as nothing short of a resounding success on Dortmund’s part. With the acquisition of Guirassy, Dortmund now have the goalscoring punch that they lacked last season - a big reason why they finished just fifth in the league; had the Champions League not been expanded, they’d have failed to qualify for this season’s edition.
Guirassy has established himself as one of the best pure finishers in the game right now - evidenced by his outstanding goals to xG ratio last season. Guirassy’s build-up play as well as his playmaking are both somewhat underrated; he also brings a level of mobility and technical skill that current starting centre-forward Niclas Füllkrug doesn’t have. There’s also the possibility that having taken over from previous head coach Edin Terzić who had been in the role for two years, Nuri Şahin might pivot to a dual centre-forward formation. Guirassy is equally adept as part of a strike pairing as he is as a solo centre-forward.
Of course, nothing is ever certain and Guirassy might not live up to the hype. However, this is just about as ideal of an example there is of a low-risk, high-reward signing. When a player like Guirassy is available at that price and a team could do with an upgrade at the position, it’s borderline malpractice to not even consider making the signing. Borussia Dortmund took the opportunity and will likely be rewarded - with Guirassy on board, expect a much-improved Dortmund team in the coming season.
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