A big bang was the signing of Udo Lattek as coach in the summer of 1979, who had worked successfully in Munich and Mönchengladbach. The 1977/78 season went into the 1977/78 season with correspondingly high expectations, which ended with an eleventh place and a 0:12 defeat on the last match day against Borussia Mönchengladbach. In its first year as a second division team, Borussia Dortmund, coming fourth in the Regionalliga West, did not achieve direct promotion again. Despite a 9-0 win against Preußen Münster, the low point of the season was the attendance of almost 1,500 spectators on the last match day. Max Merkel, whose German coaching career began in Dortmund, began rejuvenating the team in the summer of 1958 and incorporated young players such as "Hoppy" Kurrat, Charly Schütz, Timo Konietzka and Lothar Emmerich into the team – and with success, after a third place in 1960, it was enough to reach the final of the German championship in the 1960/61 season. Since the squad in the 1972/73 season only differed in certain points from the one from the relegation season, the necessary change in the team was carried out for the 1973/74 season. Before the promotion games Buhtz was released because he had already agreed with the relegation competitor Nuremberg for the new season.

During the course of the season, coach Otto Knefler was fired and replaced by Horst Buhtz. After an interim high in the 1969/70 season, when the club finished fifth, "the big sell-off" began as a consequence of the financial bottleneck that had occurred. A phase of constant coach changes followed, between spring 1981 and spring 1986 ten different coaches worked at the club Lattek's first time at BVB came to an end during the 1980/81 season when he left Borussia for FC Barcelona. Due to a home defeat against the eventual champions 1860 Munich on the penultimate matchday of the 1966 season – possibly due to the pressures from the European Cup – BVB missed the championship and was only runner-up. Consequentially, Borussia Dortmund was fourteenth in the table in 1968, and a year later, when they were sixteenth, relegation was only prevented on the last day of the game when BVB won 3-0 against Kickers Offenbach in the Rote Erde. This was followed in 1972 by 17th place with 20 points and thus 36 years after promotion to the top division, relegation to the Regionalliga West.

Borussia achieved promotion again the following season, thanks to second place in the final table and two wins in the playoffs for promotion against the 1. FC Nürnberg team. Benfica Lisbon, led by star striker Eusébio, had previously been defeated 5-0 in the second round. In the trade fair cup, BVB was eliminated in the second round against Manchester United with 1:6 and 0:4. A year later, Borussia finished third in the Bundesliga and at the same time reached the final of the DFB Cup for the second time. Afraid to Shoot Strangers is about the Second Gulf War. At Hampden Park in Glasgow, Liverpool FC were defeated 2-1 after extra time despite the English field advantages. In the quarterfinals against Atlético Madrid (1:1 in Madrid, 1:0 in Dortmund) and in the semifinals against defending champions West Ham United (2:1 in London, 3:1 at home), Borussia won, making BVB the third German team made that reached a European Cup final. This first victory for a German team in the European Cup was celebrated in Dortmund the following day with a motorcade through the city center. In this year's DFB Cup, Dortmund reached the final – for the first time in the club's history – but lost 3-0 to Hamburger SV in Hanover. First came Branko Zebec from Hamburger SV, under whom the team improved, especially in tactical terms, and finished sixth in the Bundesliga in 1981/82.

Under him, the club reached seventh place the following year, and BVB were eliminated in the first round of the UEFA Cup by Glasgow Rangers. Automatically qualified as defending champions, they went back to Glasgow against Rangers in the first round of the European Cup in the new season. Before and during the 1976/77 season, BVB signed important new players such as Ente Lippens and Manni Burgsmüller and reached a safe eighth place. In the inaugural season of the Bundesliga, of which BVB was a founding member as the reigning German champions, Borussia was one of the favorites for the title. Max Merkel left BVB after the final defeat, and Borussia secured the services of coach Hermann Eppenhoff, who had been German champions three times as a player with their regional rivals Schalke. At the same time, only players of mediocre quality were bought and hardly any good players came up from Borussia's traditionally strong youth team. If the goal rate is the same, the players are sorted by the number of appearances, and if the number of appearances is the same, they are sorted by last name. By the end of the season, the Liberian native had made 28 championship appearances, in which he scored two goals and provided another three for his teammates. The following year, BVB remained mediocre; under coach Uli Maslo, the club finished the 1978/79 season in twelfth place.