Why this Dortmund keeper never stood a chance of shifting Gregor Kobel

Some transfers do not collapse. They just get quietly squeezed out.

Diant Ramaj is close to leaving Borussia Dortmund again. FC Copenhagen have opened talks over a return. The shape of it? A loan, plus a purchase option worth roughly €5m.

He arrived from Ajax in February 2025, on a contract to 2029. Eighteen months later, he has yet to play a competitive minute for the first team. Not a single one.

The yellow wall Diant Ramaj had to climb

Gregor Kobel is the reason. Nothing else comes into it.

Kobel kept 15 clean sheets last season. Nobody in the division kept more.

His FotMob profile puts the save rate at 72.4 percent. Dortmund finished second with the meanest defence in the country.

He is 28 and tied down. BVB Buzz ranked him among the best in the Bundesliga. Last season did nothing to argue otherwise.

Now hold Ramaj's own record up against that. He played 19 games during his Copenhagen loan. Ten clean sheets. Only 14 goals conceded, plus a domestic double for the medal shelf.

Strong work. Sadly, nowhere near enough.

Back in March 2025 he called displacing Kobel a major challenge. He was not wrong.

Denmark solves this for everyone

The queue behind Kobel is crowded too. Alexander Meyer, Patrick Drewes and Silas Ostrzinski are all on the books.

Ramaj was left out of Japan for the pre-season tour. His standing in the pecking order is no mystery.

Copenhagen fits, then. The club, the city and the league are all familiar to him.

He would walk straight back into a side he helped to a double. Last season he was a Bundesliga number one at Heidenheim, so there is no rust to shake off.

Dortmund do fine out of it as well. A €5m option would recoup the entire fee paid to Ajax 18 months ago.

There is a fairness point in here, too. A keeper this capable should be playing every week somewhere. Fourth in line at BVB is no place to spend a career.

Kicker reported on Thursday that he had not yet flown to Denmark, so this is not signed and sealed. The direction of travel looks obvious enough.

Verdict: Ramaj was never going to shift Kobel, so a Copenhagen return is the kindest ending available to player and club.

Likelihood: 4/5, talks are live and the money lines up cleanly on both sides.