Borussia Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp says qualification for the Champions League is the club's top priority next season and that Bayern Munich will be the favorite to win the Bundesliga.
Despite a second successive league title and a German Cup win last season, Klopp said Wednesday that anything more than Champions League qualification is ''not realistic.''
''We won't assume that more will come automatically from last season. It starts at zero,'' Klopp said.
He then deflected expectations onto Bayern, praising the Bavarian club for making the ''biggest additions and the most spectacular sporting director transfer'' in signing former Dortmund player and coach Matthias Sammer.
At Dortmund's first press conference after the summer break, chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said the club will sell a record 54,000 season tickets, with 38,000 fans on a waiting list for the last 2,000 available.
''We have 90,000 interested!'' he said.
Watzke also revealed that Dortmund is on course to post club record revenue figures of ''well over'' ?200 million ($251 million) for the year.
''There is still one club, however, that outshines everything economically (and) that's Bayern Munich. I think that our fans are also realistic with their expectations,'' Watzke said.
Dortmund begins the defense of its Bundesliga title when it opens the league season against Werder Bremen on Aug. 24.
Klopp said his job in the meantime is ''to turn a good squad into a good team in a short space of time.''
