Immobile hungry for a fast start at Dortmund

Ciro Immobile learned quickly that they do things differently in Germany. The Italy striker had braced himself for a culture shock when he agreed to join Borussia Dortmund from Torino this summer, joking with reporters long before the transfer was confirmed that, “German is a difficult language to learn”. But the one thing he had not been ready for was the food. And specifically, the quantity thereof.

"No way!” he told an interviewer from Gazzetta dello Sport this August, in response to a question about whether he had been placed on a preseason diet by his new team. “They eat more, and more often here. At lunch, after training, after a trip. They always eat. I wasn’t used to eating after training. And it’s not a snack [here] either, it’s a full meal."

There are worse things to discover about a new employer than the fact that they intend to keep you well fed. If Immobile is having any difficulty with this new, higher-calorie regime, then you certainly would not know it from looking at his muscular 5-foot-11 frame. Nor was there any hint of heavy-footedness from the striker as he raced away from Holland’s defenders earlier this month to score his first international goal. 

That is the version of Immobile that Dortmund are hoping to see as they open their Champions League campaign at home to Arsenal on Tuesday. With away trips to Anderlecht and Galatasaray coming up next in Group D, BVB will be anxious to avoid a repeat of last season, when they lost 1-0 to these same opponents at Signal Iduna Park. 

Rendering their task more complicated is the fact that their most prolific striker, Robert Lewandowski, has departed in the interim. That is where Immobile comes in. Together with Adrián Ramos, the Italian has been signed to fill the void left by a player who scored a staggering 94 goals across all competitions over the course of the last three seasons. 

It is Ramos, signed from Hertha BSC, who has got off to the brighter start, finding the net in both of his Bundesliga appearances so far this season. But it is Immobile, yet to score for his new club, who carries the greater long-term expectations. Signed for a reported fee of €19.4m from Torino, he is the third-most expensive acquisition in Dortmund’s club history. 

His qualities as a goalscorer are beyond dispute. Explosive and unpredictable in his movements, Immobile’s characteristics are the opposite of what his name might suggest. Playing off the shoulder of the last defender, he became Serie A’s capocannoniere last season with 22 strikes in 33 games. Dortmund manager Jurgen Klopp has described him as “a real powerhouse, capable of hitting the net from all angles."

Klopp also expressed admiration for Immobile’s stamina and willingness to run hard throughout a game. It is a trait that the player developed while working under Zdenek Zeman at Pescara in Serie B. The manager is renowned throughout Italy for his brutal preseason fitness programmes, and especially his beloved gradoni – a series of exercises based around jogging, or hopping, up a set of bleachers.  

Even so, there were reports in Kicker last month that Immobile had been struggling to adapt to Dortmund’s training regimes. The striker was quick to dismiss such claims, although he did admit that the structure of practice was quite different to what he was used to. “There is a lot of technical work [mixed into] in the same exercise,” he said. “In Italy we do pressing in one exercise and then shooting in another. Here it’s all together.”

Nobody could blame Immobile for taking a little while to adjust. Klopp is one of the most particular managers in European football, a man who is more than happy to think outside of standard coaching conventions. Indeed, one of the things Immobile was most curious to see after joining Dortmund was the ‘Footbonaut’ machine that the manager had installed in 2012, and which some other professional clubs have recently begun to embrace. 

Roughly akin to a baseball batting cage, the Footbonaut feeds balls into players from different directions, at different speeds and trajectories. It is up to the user to control each ball, and then quickly pass it back through one of 64 square-shaped openings which light up in a randomly determined sequence.  

But if Klopp is unconventional, then he is also very precise. His high pressing schemes require not only a tremendous work ethic from his players but also a great deal of tactical discipline. Players as good as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan took months to adjust before they truly began to show their best form. 

That is why even Klopp does not expect to see Immobile at his best right away. The manager has expressed his surprise at how much pressure the striker puts on himself to get things right first time. Klopp attributed that mentality to the fact that players in Italy live with such intense media scrutiny, with a wide variety of local outlets monitoring Torino’s practice sessions every single day. 

But such intensity is also just a reflection of Immobile’s personality, and his desire to carry on improving as a player. Five years have passed since he made his Champions League debut, coming on as a late substitute for Juventus in their 2-0 defeat to Bordeaux. Since then, he has played for five different clubs, three of them in Serie B. 

It is a testament to his persistence, as well as his talent, that he finds himself where he does today. He may not start against Arsenal, if Klopp prefers to give Ramos the chance to extend his recent hot streak. But it would be a surprise not to see Immobile get into the game at some stage. Arsenal would do well to plan thoroughly for a player whose appetite for goals is not close to being sated.