Dortmund Pursue Barcelona's Hector Fort as Right-Back Solution

Borussia Dortmund have moved to the front of the queue for Barcelona right-back Hector Fort, with the Bundesliga club now seen as leading contenders to land the 20-year-old.

Spanish transfer reporter Matteo Moretto had only recently described BVB’s interest as “general” during a Radio Marca appearance. That interest has clearly hardened. Initial talks are understood to have taken place, and Dortmund are pushing to turn admiration into an agreement.

Right flank wide open

The need is obvious. Yan Couto has departed for Como 1907 on loan, with the Serie A side securing a €20 million option to buy the Brazilian. His exit leaves Niko Kovac with just Julian Ryerson as a natural right-back.

Everyone else on that side would be a patch job. Waldemar Anton can fill in. Filippo Mane can shuffle across. Left-back Daniel Svensson can switch flanks. None of them are specialist solutions, especially if Kovac, as expected, sticks with his preferred back three or back five. The right wing-back role becomes crucial in that setup. Dortmund know they are light there.

That gap has pushed Fort to the top of the list.

The numbers behind a Fort deal

Barcelona’s demands set the framework. A straight transfer is thought to sit around €20 million. There is also talk of a structure at half that fee – roughly €10 million – but only if Barça secure a hefty 50 per cent sell-on clause. A loan with an option to buy is also on the table and has not been ruled out.

For Dortmund, the timing helps. The collapse of the move for Said El Mala has freed up around €50 million that had been earmarked for the 1. FC Köln attacker. That budget can now be spread across the squad.

Giannis Konstantelias of PAOK Saloniki is currently viewed as the main alternative to El Mala, with the Greek talent reportedly available for around €25 million. Even if BVB go down that route, there would still be enough financial room to push hard for Fort and meet Barcelona’s conditions for a permanent deal.

The money is there. The need is there. The race, for now, is theirs to lose.

A gamble on potential, not proof

The question is what, exactly, Dortmund would be buying.

Fort remains largely untested at the highest level. He has only had brief outings for Barcelona’s first team and spent last season on loan at Elche CF. It was supposed to be a platform season. It never truly caught fire.

Against weaker opposition than he would face in the Champions League or at the top of the Bundesliga, Fort still struggled to nail down a guaranteed starting role. He finished the campaign with just over 600 minutes spread across 17 appearances. The output – three goals and two assists – hints at attacking promise, but the sample size is small and the consistency not yet there.

For a club that has built its modern identity on turning raw prospects into stars, that profile is hardly a deterrent. It is the Dortmund model in a nutshell. But with the right flank so thin and expectations high under Kovac, the margin for error shrinks.

Dortmund now stand at a familiar crossroads: double down on a talented, relatively unknown 20-year-old from Barcelona, or search for a more proven solution. With talks already underway and the budget cleared, how bold will they be this time?