Borussia Dortmund

"First impressions are the most lasting," an old saying goes. Another school of thought turns that idea around and probably holds true for sport in particular. The way people think of football players is heavily influenced by the question: "what have you done for me lately?"

For Borussia Dortmund's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, it does not matter which philosophy one follows. The Gabonese arrived on the scene with a bang, scoring a hat-trick in his full club debut against FC Augsburg in 2013. He topped that in his last game in the Bundesliga, putting four past hapless Hamburger SV.

The 27-year-old has done well between those two games, mind you, bringing his total for the Black and Yellows to an astounding 94 goals in 157 matches. He is already up to sixth place in the storied club's all-time scorer list and will in all likelihood move up to the top five this season, as Robert Lewandowski leads him by just nine goals.

The leader on the list, Adi Preissler, scored all of his 168 goals (per local paper NRZ, link in German) before the inception of the Bundesliga in 1963, which is why he will not appear on all lists.

Today's sporting director Michael Zorc, is often listed as the record scorer, having netted 159 times in a marvellous career he spent as a one-club man at the Westfalenstadion—he is also Dortmund's most capped player with 572 appearances across all competitions.

Whoever of Preissler and Zorc gets the official nod, Aubameyang has a realistic shot at becoming the club's top scorer if he stays around long enough. He is under contract until 2020 but subject of heavy transfer speculation almost year-round these days.

Goals are not everything of course. The Gabon international has never won a major trophy with the club, for example. Still, there can be little doubt that he is already one of the best strikers to ever lace his boots for Dortmund.

That development was difficult to foresee during Aubameyang's early days with the club. Under Jurgen Klopp in the 2013/14 season, the €13 million signing from AS Saint-Etienne played almost exclusively on the wings. His devilish pace was a weapon—as evidenced against Augsburg—but he also showed clear tactical limitations in defence.

It led Dortmund's highly successful coach to bench the France-born forward toward the business end of the season. Aubameyang made just one league start from the end of March on and played a combined 50 minutes in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals against Real Madrid and the DFB-Pokal semi-final and final against VfL Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich, respectively.

As BVB insider Freddie Rockenhaus would later reveal for Suddeutsche Zeitung (link in German), Klopp was even willing to sell the extroverted attacker after just one year.

Even when Lewandowski left for Bavaria in the summer of 2014, Aubameyang was not deemed a worthy successor. Dortmund paid a lofty €18.5 million fee for Torino's Ciro Immobile, who had won the Capocannoniere award as Serie A's leading scorer for the Granata that year. They also spent €9.7 million on Hertha BSC's Adrian Ramos.

While the Colombian has proved to be a valuable backup striker over time, Immobile became one of the worst signings in club history, leaving Dortmund after only one wholeheartedly disappointing campaign in which the Italian scored a measly 10 goals across all competitions, only three of which came in the Bundesliga.

Had Klopp simply trusted in what—rather, who—he had right in front of his eyes, Dortmund could have saved themselves a lot of worries. Finally getting a crack at playing at his best position at the Westfalenstadion from November 2014 on, Aubameyang exploded onto the scene.

His 16 goals helped prevent a disappointing season from turning into a disastrous one. The 27-year-old scored 11 of his goals in the final 15 league matches, which saw Dortmund climb out of the relegation spots and into the UEFA Europa League qualifiers.

Aubameyang has not looked back since. If anything, he is still getting better under head coach Thomas Tuchel, whose emphasis on possession and dominance means the Gabonese gets fewer chances on counter-attacks, but ends up in better scoring positions, as analyst Ted Knutson noted for StatsBomb.com.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's last 56 goals in the Bundesliga have all come inside the area.

Poacher. pic.twitter.com/JsWfYUouvM

— Squawka (@Squawka) November 5, 2016

Thanks to a strong season under the 43-year-old and a blistering start to the current campaign—14 goals in 14 matches across competitions—Aubameyang has upped his goals-per-game ratio to an impressive 0.6.

With that, he is almost tied with Lothar Emmerich, arguably the greatest attacker in club history. Emmerich scored 122 goals in 200 matches for the club, good for 0.61 goals per game. The Dortmund-born forward, who died aged only 61 in 2003, was not even a central striker, making his accomplishments all the more impressive.

He was more of a wide forward by modern definitions, often scoring from seemingly impossible angles with his left foot. The video below shows arguably his most famous goal, a fantastic strike for Germany at the 1966 World Cup in England against Spain.

Emmerich's legend is visible to this day, with the club mascot, a bee, being named "Emma" in honour of one of the heroes of 1966, when Dortmund beat Liverpool in the European Cup Winners' Cup final at Hampden Park.

Of course, it is almost impossible to compare players who played in different eras of the sport. It makes more sense to see how Aubameyang stacks up with more recent strikers who wore the Black and Yellows' shirt. 

Manfred Burgsmuller, who played at the Westfalenstadion between 1976 and 1983, has the same impressive goals-per-game ratio as the Gabonese, scoring 148 times in 245 matches. One of the best pure poachers in Bundesliga history, Burgsmuller had the misfortune of playing for some rather pedestrian Dortmund sides. 

He managed to lead his team in scoring for six consecutive seasons, something no other Dortmund player has done in the Bundesliga era. Aubameyang is on his way to doing that for a third straight season, which would tie, among others, Stephane Chapuisat.

The Swiss striker accomplished this feat twice in the 1990s, showing impressive longevity during the club's perhaps most successful run. A fan favourite for his big effort on the pitch as much as for his humble demeanor off it, Chapuisat is arguably the most decorated striker in the club's long history, winning Bundesliga titles in 1995 and 1996 and the 1997 Champions League. He ended up with 124 goals in 284 matches, a ratio of 0.44

Player	Goals
Adi Preissler	168
Michael Zorc	159
Manfred Burgsmuller	148
Stephane Chauisat	124
Lothar Emmerich	122
Robert Lewandowski	103
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang	94
Andreas Moller	88
Jan Koller	79
Marco Reus	76

Even though he did not follow in the Switzerland international's footsteps immediately, the towering Jan Koller was the next striker fans could not help but fall in love with. Standing at 202 centimetres, the Czech combined his physical skills with surprising technical abilities, earning him the nickname "white Brazilian."

Much like Chapuisat, Koller was not only a strong scorer himself, but he had many different tasks on the field. In most of his five years at the club between 2001 and 2006, a long ball toward him was the team's only reliable move in the buildup phase. He will always have a special place in the heart of Dortmund fans for sticking with the club through the dark days, when they almost went into bankruptcy. 

Dortmund, of course, emerged from those dark days with a bang under Klopp, a highly successful period that, in terms of strikers, will always be associated with Lewandowski—with apologies to Lucas Barrios, who was only a starter for two seasons.

Lewandowski may go down as the best striker to ever have played for the Black and Yellows, considering he is at least in the discussion when people talk about the best No. 9s in the game, having developed even further at Bayern.

Because of the rivalry between the two clubs, the Pole will always be a measuring stick for Aubameyang.

Even though the Gabonese has the slightly better individual statistics—Lewandowski scored 0.55 goals per game, or a goal every 140 minutes, compared to 124 for Aubameyang—one cannot overlook the fact Lewandowski won the Bundesliga as a starter in 2012, as well as the DFB-Pokal in the same year.

He also almost single-handedly pushed Dortmund into the Champions League final in 2013 with a quadruple against Los Blancos in the semi-finals.

Aubameyang may be virtually guaranteed to end up with better numbers than his predecessor at the heart of Dortmund's strikeforce, but he will not be considered Lewandowski's equal until his goals bring the club some silverware.

With the 27-year-old still only getting better under Tuchel, however, there is every chance he will end up as perhaps the greatest striker in club history.

If that is not a great reason to stay at the Westfalenstadion for a few more years...

                              

All performance data via Transfermarkt.com unless otherwise noted.

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

By and large, Borussia Dortmund have put together a decent start to the season.

Many predicted the Black and Yellows would stumble out of the gates a bit following a massive squad overhaul during the summer transfer window, and those auguries have proved correct.

Still, they are not far off their target for the season in the Bundesliga after 10 rounds of matches, sitting fifth in the table, two points behind TSG Hoffenheim in the third spot that qualifies directly to the UEFA Champions League.

In Europe's elite club competition, Dortmund have already advanced to the last 16 with two matchdays to go and are at least guaranteed to have what is essentially a play-off for the group win against Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabeu in early December. If they beat Legia Warsaw at home and Los Blancos drop points at Sporting CP, Dortmund could even win the group on the next matchday.

In the DFB-Pokal, a makeshift BVB side needed penalties to advance against Union Berlin in the second round, but making it through is the only thing that matters in the cup.

That said, it is obvious the Ruhr side is not playing at the same level on display last season. Dortmund clearly miss three key players who left for greener pastures in the summer.

Even though they have done fairly well in replacing those departures on the transfer market, one can safely assume the Black and Yellows would look better had Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gundogan or Henrikh Mkhitaryan stayed at Westfalenstadion.

Given Bayern Munich look surprisingly beatable in the Bundesliga—they have dropped points against Cologne, Eintracht Frankfurt and Hoffenheim—chances are BVB could even have challenged for the title with those three.

But whom do Dortmund miss the most? Here, Bleacher Report takes a closer look.

                                  

The Case for Mats Hummels

Before his transfer to boyhood club Bayern was announced in May, this writer argued that Mats Hummels' departure for Munich would be the biggest blow to Dortmund yet.

The 27-year-old was more than just a world-class centre-back for Dortmund. He was a leader on and off the pitch, a mouthpiece and face of the club, especially after Jurgen Klopp left and the less charismatic, more schoolmasterly Thomas Tuchel took over.

ESPN FC's Stefan Buczko summed it up pointedly. "By handing in his captain's armband of the German vice-champions, the leader of BVB's rebellion against Bayern's monopoly is waving the white flag," the Dortmund-based writer wrote. "Hummels is showing everyone in the league that resistance is futile and that he is prepared to ditch his BVB legacy for the likeliness of silverware."

Losing their captain and leader to their biggest domestic rivals was much worse than losing Gundogan and Mkhitaryan to Manchester City and Manchester United, respectively. It put Dortmund in their place as a distant No. 2 in German football.

One could argue, however, that his loss on the pitch was not quite as devastating. 

For all of Hummels' class, the Germany international was struggling for form for longer stretches of games during the latter stages of his career in the Ruhr valley. He was downright bad for more than half a year following the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which contributed to the club's fall into the relegation zone during Klopp's final season.

Even in Tuchel's maiden campaign, Hummels only started playing to his capabilities after a few months of searching for form.

That does not mean, though, that he is not a world-class centre-back. First and foremost, he is one of the best ball-playing defenders on the planet, which has incredible value for a possession-orientated system such as Tuchel's.

Dortmund are struggling to play out from the defensive zone this season, even though both Matthias Ginter and Marc Bartra have shown they have the talent to pick up some of the slack in Hummels' absence.

Bartra, who came to the club for a bargain €8 million from FC Barcelona in the summer, looked especially promising early in the season—before he picked up a muscle injury—as this video from tactics blogger Tom Payne shows:

https://twitter.com/TomPayneftbl/status/781477548316356608

Dortmund do miss Hummels, and his transfer had a highly symbolic meaning in the context of the rivalry with Bayern, but the two other departures arguably hurt the club more on the pitch.

                       

The Case for Henrikh Mkhitaryan

There can be little doubt Henrikh Mkhitaryan was Dortmund's best player last season. Beyond incredible scoring numbers—23 goals and 32 assists in 51 matches, per Transfermarkt—the Armenian embodied the change in philosophies between the reigns of Klopp and Tuchel.

"When Tuchel came, we started to play a different kind of football," he told B/R in an exclusive interview earlier this year. "We try to keep the ball more, we try to pass it more and play very offensive football."

Mkhitaryan was the perfect attacker for 43-year-old's system. A technically sound player with excellent speed, vision and tactical awareness, he regularly punished teams that allowed him too much space. Knifing inside from his usual starting position on either wing, Mkhitaryan made the half-spaces his hunting ground and went for the kill with surgical precision.

The 27-year-old and Tuchel seemed a match made in football heaven. The head coach's ability to get the best out of Mkhitaryan's struggling genius was one of the biggest reasons for Dortmund's strong campaign.

Then Manchester United came along, offered the Armenian a lot of money and the Black and Yellows a club-record transfer deal worth a Transfermarkt-reported €42 million (£36 million).

Mkhitaryan's struggles at Old Trafford are well-documented, and many Dortmund fans cannot hide a bit of schadenfreude. That extends to the club's chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke, who categorically ruled out a future Mkhitaryan return in an interview with German sport magazine Kicker.

"Any intelligent player should consider in advance what kind of environment they are moving to," he said (h/t Stephan Uersfeld of ESPN FC). "When you are playing in surroundings where things are working for you, like in Dortmund, then it is quite strange to give that away again once things have finally started to work out for you after a long time settling in."

Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Dortmund last season: Games: 51, Goals: 23, Assists: 20

Today: Failed to make #MUFC’s 18-man squad #FreeMkhitaryan pic.twitter.com/v3RIwPNq2b

— B/R Football (@brfootball) October 29, 2016

Mkhitaryan's more than disappointing start to life under Jose Mourinho notwithstanding, it is obvious that Dortmund miss their best player from last season. The Black and Yellows have only Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as a consistent threat on goal—his 14 goals across competition are followed by three each for Gonzalo Castro, Raphael Guerreiro and Adrian Ramos.

The team's attacking play has looked laboured, predictable and even slow at times this season. The Mkhitaryan of 2015-16 would be just what the doctor ordered.

That said, Dortmund replaced the Armenian with two exciting youngsters in Emre Mor and Ousmane Dembele, as well as club-record, €30 million signing Andre Schurrle. Academy product Christian Pulisic has also received more playing time following Mkhitaryan's departure and injuries to Schurrle and Marco Reus.

The Black and Yellows are missing the Armenian and his quality on the pitch, but they have a number of exciting options to take his place.

                                

The Case for Ilkay Gundogan

It is almost ironic that the player Dortmund should have been well-prepared to replace has so far proved to be irreplaceable. Ilkay Gundogan missed so many matches over his career at Westfalenstadion that the club had ample opportunity to prepare for life without the midfielder.

Even in his last season at the club, in which he returned to world-class form, Gundogan missed 13 matches during the second half of the campaign. Some would argue it cost the club silverware, as the Germany international missed all but eight minutes of the UEFA Europa League quarter-final meetings with Liverpool, as well as the cup final against Bayern.

If Mkhitaryan was the man to make things happen in the final third, Gundogan was the player who made Tuchel's system work.

One of the best conductors in European football, the 26-year-old was arguably the most important player on the pitch, responsible for the team's structure and organisation in possession. His statistics—three goals and seven assists, per Transfermarkt—did not show it, but Gundogan put his stamp on Dortmund's play more than anyone else.

It is by no means a coincidence that he is now tearing things up at Man City under Pep Guardiola, recently scoring a brace in the Champions League against Barca, as Dortmund fan David Schafer pointed out:

https://twitter.com/dschaefer93/status/793563492301275136

It makes the club's decision to not sign a like-for-like replacement all the more baffling. Dortmund acquired three wingers after Mkhitaryan's departure but not a single creative central midfielder.

Returnee Mario Gotze has taken on some of Gundogan's responsibilities but cannot be expected to have the same strategic influence. Sebastian Rode, who is more of a box-to-box midfielder than a playmaker anyway, has all the makings of a failed signing.

One could argue it would have been impossible for Dortmund to sign anyone close to Gundogan's world-class quality, but the fact they did not even get someone in who could grow into that role is hard to justify.

The club may get lucky if Guerreiro continues to develop in central midfield after playing most of his career for FC Lorient and Portugal at left-back, however. The 22-year-old has so far only started three matches in that position. 

Still, it is only fitting that the team is often struggling to advance the ball into the final third with any kind of authority and purpose. There is a gaping hole where Gundogan used to dictate the tempo of every attacking move.

Dortmund clearly miss the midfield mastermind the most.

                                

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

For a head coach who is often lauded as an innovator and groundbreaker, Borussia Dortmund's Thomas Tuchel has been somewhat conservative in the way he's set his teams up this season.

The manager he looks up to the most, Manchester City's Pep Guardiola, busts out new formations seemingly every week, as he did during a highly successful three-year spell at Bayern Munich. Others who are held in high regard in the tactics community, such as Sevilla's Jorge Sampaoli, also place an emphasis on variability.

The Black and Yellows, though, have played almost exclusively in a 4-1-4-1 shape this season. They started the campaign with a Bundesliga-typical 4-2-3-1 alignment when key midfielder Julian Weigl was still overcoming the effects of Euro 2016, but since the 21-year-old has returned, Dortmund have made no major changes.

It is perhaps a reaction to the wholesale changes the club underwent in the summer. The three key players who left, Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gundogan and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, were crucial for Tuchel's tactical approach during his first year at the club.

With many new faces, most of them highly talented but inexperienced, coming in, the 43-year-old probably felt it would be overwhelming for his new team to try different formations.

Dortmund did go away from their 4-1-4-1 in the final match before the November international break, playing a 3-4-2-1, but one can presume that was more down to the fact Tuchel felt players such as midfielders Weigl and Mario Gotze and full-back Felix Passlack needed a break after a hectic schedule in the previous weeks.

The club's personnel situation should look much more relaxed following the international break, though. Even long-term absentee Marco Reus is close to making his season debut. Tuchel will have more options at most positions, which should not only lead to a better rotation and more competition but could also entice Dortmund's boss to open up his playbook a bit.

In his first season at the club, Tuchel played the entire first half of the season with more or less the same basic tactical concepts. Set up in a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 hybrid, Dortmund looked mesmerising in attack but vulnerable in defence, scoring 47 but also conceding 23 goals over the first 17 Bundesliga matches.

In the second half of the campaign, they scored only 35—which still led the league—but conceded just 11 goals. How did Dortmund cut the number of goals against them in half?

Tuchel introduced a back-three system the Black and Yellows regularly went to, especially in bigger games. Even in games in which they nominally started with a regular four-man back line, one of the full-backs usually moved high up the pitch to give Dortmund a 3-2-4-1 shape, providing excellent width and allowing for even more dominance in midfield.

In turn, that helped against the team's biggest weakness in defence: a distinct susceptibility to counter-attacks. Three defenders gave Dortmund a more solid presence in front of their own goal, while the wing-backs would move behind to provide additional cover when opposing teams had longer spells of pressure.

With the team struggling in possession this season so far, moving to a three-man defence could be a decisive spark for the Ruhr side.

It would take some of the burden in the buildup phase off Weigl's shoulders and alleviate some of the issues the transfer of Gundogan to Manchester City—and the club's negligence to get a similar player in during the summer—raised.

Perhaps even more importantly, it may help seal the team's leaky defence.

Dortmund have already conceded 12 goals in the Bundesliga alone, five of which came against the two teams at the bottom of the table, FC Ingolstadt and Hamburger SV, who have only scored a combined 11 times over the first 10 matchdays.

The Black and Yellows tie local rivals Schalke 04 for the seventh-best defensive record in the Bundesliga—and the Royal Blues lost their first five matches of the season.

It goes a long way toward explaining why Dortmund are not only six points adrift of Carlo Ancelotti's Bayern but also behind upstarts RB Leipzig, TSG Hoffenheim and Hertha BSC in the table despite boasting the league's best attack, with 25 goals.

Surprisingly, the Ruhr side has looked more solid defensively in the UEFA Champions League, where they conceded two goals at home against Real Madrid but have kept two clean sheets. It indicates that the domestic woes are not a question of quality but one of focus and intensity.

Michael Cox noted for ESPN FC that "Dortmund have made the fewest tackles, the fewest interceptions and won the joint-fewest aerial duels in this season's Bundesliga."

It has been far too easy to overwhelm Dortmund with two or three quick passes behind the last defensive line, even for teams of pedestrian-at-best attacking quality such as Ingolstadt. Committing three centre-backs as cover in their own defensive third could help in that regard.

One could point to the Hamburg match as a counter-example, but it seems likely that Dortmund lost their intensity against the northern Germans because the game was decided when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored his fourth goal of the day within four minutes of the second-half kick-off.

Tuchel has solid personnel options for a back three and the wing-back spots.

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has successfully implemented a back three that has led to a major surge up the Premier League table in recent weeks and described the demands on the three defenders to the club's official website.

"The central defenders on the right and the left must be very fast and aggressive," Conte stated. "The players who play in the middle of the three defenders must be more tactical, must reflect more and find the right position, and also call the line up and down."

Applied to Dortmund, Marc Bartra and Sokratis Papastathopoulos fit the bill as aggressive and quick defenders, while Matthias Ginter has experience playing in a more advanced role in defensive midfield, which should help him in the middle.

The wing-back spots are a physical challenge to whichever players fill them, but Dortmund have team captain Marcel Schmelzer, who excelled in that role during the latter stages of last season, for the left wing and the 18-year-old Passack for the opposite side.

Passlack's dynamism makes him a better fit than long-serving right-back Lukasz Piszczek, who would probably be a back-up central defender in this scenario. Mikel Merino, who has only played one game so far this season, would fit in well as a left-sided centre-back.

The Spaniard looked a bit overwhelmed in the first half of his club debut against Hertha BSC but improved dramatically when he was allowed to move up the field from his position at the heart of defence, resulting in a beautiful through ball hockey assist for Aubameyang's equaliser against the club from the capital.

Even disappointing summer signing Sebastian Rode could play as a wing-back thanks to his qualities as a runner and in counter-pressing.

Cox rightly pointed out that "Dortmund simply need to be more cohesive and more compact without the ball, which should come with more work on the training ground." But there is no reason to assume a move to a back three would not have the same calming effect it had during Tuchel's first season in charge at Westfalenstadion.

It is about time the Black and Yellows got a little more creative.

                      

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

Two years can be a long time, especially in football. Careers have been made—and wasted—in shorter spans of time.

For Matthias Ginter, his first two years at Borussia Dortmund may well have felt like a lifetime. Only now, in his third season at the Westfalenstadion, is he getting the chance to prove his worth at his preferred position for an extended run of matches.

The 22-year-old joined the Ruhr side in 2014 as one of the most promising centre-backs in all of European football. Coming off a season in which he played the full 90 minutes 33 out of 34 times for boyhood club SC Freiburg en route to a safe 14th-place finish, Ginter even worked his way into Joachim Low's 2014 FIFA World Cup-winning squad.

Even though he did not play in Brazil, his mere inclusion at the age of 20 was a sign of just how talented a player Dortmund had captured from the Black Forest side for a modest fee of €10 million. Ginter himself was ecstatic at the time, telling the club's official website a "childhood dream is coming true today."

That childhood dream turned sour for a while, however. His first year at the club saw Dortmund inexplicably tumble into the relegation spots into the second half of the campaign.

One of the youngest players on the team, Ginter looked overwhelmed in his rare appearances at the heart of defence. He made only three starts during the second half of the campaign, all of which came in defensive midfield. Sport magazine Kicker (link in German) astutely graded him as Dortmund's second worst player of that disappointing campaign.

The coaching switch from Jurgen Klopp to Thomas Tuchel brought change for Ginter, but not at his natural position. His first start in central defence lasted all of 45 minutes, with Dortmund embarrassing themselves by falling behind by three goals against Norwegian side Odds BK in the UEFA Europa League qualifiers.

Tuchel moved the then-21-year-old out wide to right-back and, for a while, things seemed to click for Ginter. Scoring two and assisting an impressive seven goals in the first half of the Bundesliga season alone, per Transfermarkt.com, his unforeseen quality in attack was arguably one of the most surprising aspects of Dortmund's strong performances early in Tuchel's maiden campaign.

Much like the year before, though, his playing time dwindled after the winter break. His second start at centre-back under the 43-year-old came in April against Werder Bremen.

Constantly moved around on the pitch when he did not spend entire games on the bench, it was difficult to imagine Ginter making a breakthrough at Dortmund. Even when the transfer of Mats Hummels to Bayern Munich was finalised, few will have thought Ginter would get the chance to finally prove himself at centre-back.

That may well have included the man himself, who, per Dirk Krampe of local paper Ruhr Nachrichten (link in German), flirted with leaving for VfL Wolfsburg in the summer.

It was understandable: Even without team captain Hummels, Dortmund still had Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Neven Subotic as experienced options, while Sven Bender converted from holding midfielder to central defender under Tuchel. The club also signed Marc Bartra from FC Barcelona and had every intention of making the Masia product Hummels' successor on the pitch.

Ginter's fortunes would change for the better in Brazil. Two years after witnessing Germany's World Cup win from the sidelines, he was back for the Olympic tournament, alongside team-mate Bender. Apart from playing fairly well in a silver-medal-winning run, the experience he made as one of the leaders of the team helped his personal development.

Tuchel acknowledged as much earlier this season, as relayed by Dortmund-based football writer Stefan Buczko:

Tuchel: "We're happy Matthias Ginter played at Olympia. He says it gave him confidence. People mustn't forget his great potential." #B04BVB

— Stefan Buczko (@StefanBuczko) September 30, 2016

Just as important as his own time in Brazil was the fact that Bender came back with a nagging foot problem that has kept him out of action ever since. With Subotic already nursing a long-term rib injury, Ginter suddenly was the lone senior cover at the heart of defence.

Then Bartra picked up a muscle injury during the 5-1 win over Wolfsburg. In a matter of a few short weeks, Ginter turned from a stopgap without a defined role into an important back-up and, ultimately, an indispensable player.

The 22-year-old has started all of Dortmund's last 10 matches across all competitions, eight times getting to play at centre-back. It is his first extended run at his natural position since coming to the club in 2014. His confidence visibly grows with almost every minute he spends on the field.

Completing 88.5 per cent of an average of 82.5 passes per match this campaign, per WhoScored.com, he has taken on an important role in the team's buildup phase.

While he does not display the same passing range that Hummels did—though, to be fair, few defenders compare favourably with the Bayern star—Ginter has shown a knack for breaking defensive structures with well-tempered ground passes.

He has also become more assured in his defending, even though he could still stand to add a few pounds of muscle mass to gain more strength in his upper body in order to hold his ground against the more physical strikers he faces.

Quite frankly, there is little reason for Tuchel to take Ginter out of the lineup, as Bartra has returned to full fitness. If anything, the head coach could be inclined to find a way to play both his ball-playing centre-backs together in a system with a back three, as he did against Hamburger SV in the final Bundesliga match before the November international break.

Ginter's positive development in the recent weeks once again proves the importance of confidence in football, as Tuchel alluded to himself, again via Buczko:

Tuchel: "The match against Real Madrid was a small breakthrough for @MatzeGinter." #B04BVB

— Stefan Buczko (@StefanBuczko) September 30, 2016

Dortmund would do well to nurture the 22-year-old's blossoming. If Ginter continues to make good on the huge promise he showed before signing at the Westfalenstadion, his difficult first two years at the club could go down as important life experiences.

The Black and Yellows still seem set to sign Bayer Leverkusen's Omer Toprak as another experienced centre-back option in 2017 for a bargain of €12 million, per tabloid Sport Bild (link in German), but Ginter has finally made his mark at the club.

If he continues on the path he has taken this season so far, it will be difficult to keep him out of the lineup—for Bartra and Toprak and, really, Tuchel.

                          

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

The last time Borussia Dortmund fans saw Marco Reus on the football pitch, the Black and Yellows fought for the DFB-Pokal in the final against Bayern Munich, losing only on penalties after a tight 120-minute battle.

Reus, one of the unluckiest footballers in recent memory, remained without a single major trophy in his career and, to make things worse, missed his second consecutive international tournament with Germany due to muscular issues.

Adding insult to injury, the Dortmund star learned of his omission from the squad on his 27th birthday on May 31, per ESPN FC's Stephan Uersfeld.

His club announced on the official website at the time that the attacker was set to return to training in mid-August, which would have meant the Ruhr side's No. 11 would likely have only missed a handful of games to start the 2016/17 campaign.

August came and went, however, as did September, without the Germany international returning to work with his team-mates. Per Goal.com's Stefan Coerts, Reus first took part in a full-team training session on October 11.

If nothing else, it seems the 27-year-old has made good strides since that point. Head coach Thomas Tuchel raved about his star man in his press conference ahead of the Bundesliga match against Hamburger SV at the weekend.

"It is a pleasure to watch him training right now," Dortmund's boss told the press: "Marco is in top condition, and at a noticeably high level with regard to his game. We are hoping that it will stay that way. I do not think it will be long before he can play for us again."

It would be a welcome boost for a Dortmund side that has yet to find their feet on a consistent basis after a summer that brought wholesale changes to the squad.

Whereas the impact of the departures of team captain Mats Hummels and midfielders Ilkay Gundogan and Henrikh Mkhitaryan have been discussed at length, the fact that Dortmund have missed Reus has almost gone unnoticed to this point.

That can be considered a compliment to a player such as Christian Pulisic, who has done well on the attacking wings, especially given his lack of experience. It can also be down to the fact, though, that fans and onlookers have got used to Reus being unavailable.

In addition to the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2016 in the summer, he has missed close to 50 games in his four-plus years at the Westfalenstadion with various injuries, per Transfermarkt.com. Lengthy lay-offs are bad enough, but a near-constant stop-and-go with smaller, nagging problems has taken a considerable toll on his performances.

It is possible that Reus would not even still be at the club had he stayed healthy throughout his career.

Bleacher Report's Daniel Tiluk noted on the subject in 2015:

Alaskan king-crab fishermen are thought to have Earth's most dangerous job, but give them Dortmund's No. 11 shirt and statisticians might revise their thinking.

Unquestionably a talented footballer with high—if not unlimited—ceilings, Reus' body has transformed into the Bundesliga's best defender and his own worst enemy.

His lengthy injury history provides a blueprint for himself, Tuchel and his coaching staff and the club's millions of fans as they welcome Reus back into the fold.

Since the fateful injury in the final friendly match ahead of the World Cup in Brazil against Armenia, the attacker has usually struggled in the first few games after coming back.

In Tuchel's maiden campaign at the Westfalenstadion last year, Reus had three poor showings following a toe problem, which prompted his head coach to bench him for the biggest game of the campaign to that point—a meeting with Bayern Munich in October that would end up as a 5-1 thrashing of Dortmund.

In that sense, a comeback against the Bavarian giants after the November international break would only be fitting. However, fans ought to be cautious with their expectations of Reus immediately after his return to the field.

Chances are Tuchel will be conservative and bring his No. 11 along slowly but steadily, increasing his workload with a view on getting him to his best level for the start of the second half of the season in January.

Thanks to Pulisic's development and the presence of both Andre Schurrle and Ousmane Dembele, Dortmund can afford not to rush Reus back into action and thus lower the risk of a quick relapse. Of course, that will always remain a risk with the 27-year-old. Cynics would say the only thing fans should expect from Reus' return is the next injury.

For however long he will stay healthy this time around, however, he should be a big help to his team. Pulisic and Dembele are largely doing well, but their lack of experience shows up here and there. Both teenagers—naturally—have yet to find a consistency in their game.

For example, Schalke 04's Sead Kolasinac physically dominated 18-year-old Pulisic in a goalless Revierderby on Matchday 9, but the young American turned in arguably his two best performances at the senior level in the UEFA Champions League against Sporting CP and against Hamburg on the weekend immediately thereafter.

Now, Reus has also lacked consistency due to his injury woes, but there is no denying his quality. He is indubitably one of the most dangerous wide forwards in the game. Having scored 76 and assisted a further 53 goals in his Dortmund career, per Transfermarkt, he has been involved in a goal roughly every 99 minutes over the last four seasons.

With Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang the team's only consistent scoring threat so far this season—the Gabon international has scored 14 goals across all competitions while no other player has more than three—Dortmund need Reus' knack for popping up in the right spot and his impeccable shooting technique.

With big games not only against Bayern but also upstarts Cologne, 1899 Hoffenheim and Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga, as well as a likely play-off for the Champions League group win against Real Madrid on the horizon after the international break, there will be plenty of games in which a player of Reus' quality and standing could make the difference.

The question is whether he and Tuchel can have enough trust in the Germany international's ability to hold up physically and get up to speed in a team that looks much different compared to the one he last played with in May.

Smiling from dozens of adverts and even the cover of EA Sports' FIFA 17 video game, Reus is the face of the club and one of only a handful of German players with a global appeal. He is a superstar.

Those expecting that to show on the field soon after his return from another months-long injury break, however, may well be in for a disappointment. Chances are he will need time and that fans will only see the true Reus in 2017.

                       

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

If there is a positive in an injury crisis at a football club, it is that it allows young players to gain valuable experience they otherwise would have struggled to make.

For Borussia Dortmund, some fans feared ahead of the season that a shopping spree in this summer's transfer window could crowd the depth chart too much for the homegrown talents to make their mark under head coach Thomas Tuchel.

And, for a while, it seemed as though Felix Passlack and Christian Pulisic, the club academy's two crown jewels, would not get company from other players who are still eligible to play for the under-19 team that is attempting to defend last season's Bundesliga championship.

Then came a veritable injury crisis, however, and two youngsters got their feet wet with Tuchel's senior squad. Dzenis Burnic only came on in added time in the first meeting with Sporting CP in the UEFA Champions League, but a debut is a debut. 

Fellow 18-year-old Jacob Bruun Larsen even got to start in his professional debut, when Dortmund were out of wingers due to injuries and illness to Pulisic and Ousmane Dembele in the DFB-Pokal against Union Berlin.

It is not surprising that these two followed in the footsteps of the American international and Passlack. Both Burnic and Larsen have played in a number of first-team friendlies and were always likely to make the next step at some point. The personnel situation merely accelerated their development.

With that in mind, Bleacher Report takes a closer look at what the two newest members of the Black and Yellows have to offer on the pitch.

                       

Positional Fits

Burnic replaced Passlack at left-back against Sporting, when the more experienced of the two 18-year-olds suffered from cramps. One could argue it is only his fourth-best position, as Burnic has a lot of versatility.

For the under-19 team, the Germany youth international most often plays in central midfield, from where he is influential in all areas of the game. He can also play a more defensive role in midfield, as a holding midfielder.

Under Tuchel, he spent most of his time at centre-back during the summer. That may well have been down to the fact that Dortmund were without veteran options Sven Bender and Matthias Ginter due to their commitment to play for Germany at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, however.

Burnic does not seem to have the necessary physicality to survive at the heart of defence at professional level—even though the position has gone through a bit of a change over the last few years, allowing more technical players with vision and passing skills to play at centre-back to help out in the buildup phase.

His best positional fit is probably at the base of midfield as a deep-lying playmaker. Out wide, a lack of dynamism and pure speed make him less than a perfect fit for a role at full-back or as a true winger.

For Larsen, the exact opposite is the case. His best attribute is his lightning pace, combined with a well-developed body.

The tall 18-year-old looks the part of a professional football player and does hold up well against more senior competition. He did not look out of place in Brazil during the summer, where he represented Denmark in the Olympics.

Apart from his start in the cup, when Tuchel told German broadcaster Sky he chose Larsen because he wanted a specialist on the wing, he has also played full-back for the first team in friendlies. Seeing as he is almost an old-fashioned, fairly linear winger, that may be his best position for the Black and Yellows.

His recovery speed and knowledge to use his body as an advantage in duels, as shown in the video below, make him a good fit for a full-back role:

Larsen may just be the next converted full-back at the Westfalenstadion, joining a list that already contains players such as Kevin Grosskreutz, Erik Durm, Passlack and even team captain Marcel Schmelzer.

     

Strengths

Apart from his versatility, Burnic offers good technical quality on the ball and the ability to dissect opposing defensive lines with good vision. 

As these images from last season's Bundesliga championship game against 1899 Hoffenheim show, the 18-year-old can rely on his technique even in tight spaces deep in his own half. One weighted forward pass after his turn and Dortmund are on a dangerous counter-attack:

A staple of Burnic's play from deep midfield zones is a long, arching ball toward either sideline. Dropping ahead of the centre-backs early and often to have the whole field in front of him, he effortlessly shifts Dortmund's possession outside to give width, allowing the team to attack in numbers.

Even though he is not the quickest player by any stretch of the imagination, he can make stretching runs into the half-spaces like a box-to-box midfielder at times. Burnic has the intelligence to take a measured approach as to when he steps up. His vision not only helps his passing, it also allows him to understand spaces on the pitch well for such a young player.

Larsen, on the other hand, seems to be a less cerebral, more instinctive player who trusts in his legs more than his mind. His quickness is almost impossible to match at the youth level.

Scoring 17 and assisting 21 goals over 39 matches at the under-19 level for Dortmund, per Transfermarkt.com, his effectiveness cannot be denied. It would be unfair, however, to assume Larsen will lose that scoring touch by default when he moves up to the professional level on a permanent basis at the end of the season.

In his debut against Union, it was Larsen who created Dortmund's goal. Even though it was an unsuccessful cross that defender Michael Parensen deflected into his own net, the 18-year-old earned the goal with a positive run into the box when his team were in desperate need of any kind of spark.

As most young players, the Dane will struggle to make the right decision from time to time, but he has the right instincts around the opponent's goal, not only in terms of his solid finishing skills.

As shown below in a clip from the Olympics, Larsen has the general awareness a winger needs to have:

    

Weaknesses and Future

Burnic does not show any major weaknesses in his game. He can be a bit rash in his challenges and made the decisive mistake in a UEFA Youth League defeat against Sporting last Wednesday, when he carelessly lost the ball in his own half, but that seems like a problem that will go away with more experience.

Luca Gierl noted for The Yellow Wall, Burnic "tends to demand the ball very aggressively, sometimes coming too deep into his own half and too close to his own centre-backs to receive the ball," thus "closing passing lanes for his own team, while taking away a chance for himself to get between the lines of the opponent."

A certain lack of patience would also seem like a problem that will not present itself at the next level too often. More than anything, the question is whether Burnic is more than a jack of all trades. With a squad so full of individual talent as Dortmund's, the 18-year-old may lack a defined role.

In a perfect world, he develops into a capable back-up and eventual replacement for Julian Weigl, the team's metronome in defensive midfield who will likely move to one of European football's giant clubs at some point.

Larsen's weaknesses are more visible, on the other hand. His first touch and technique in general are probably not up to the Black and Yellows' standards for attacking players.

Tuchel only rarely sets up his team with linear wingers, rather Dortmund's wide men often drift in and out of the half-space. That fluidity requires a certain level of football intelligence Larsen has so far not shown. 

If the 18-year-old sees himself as an attacker down the road, chances are he will have to find playing time elsewhere than the Westfalenstadion. He has potential at full-back, but Passlack's presence presents a challenge in and of itself: Can Dortmund afford to develop two teenagers at the position?

                               

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

Borussia Dortmund overcame their curse on Saturday, beating bogey team Hamburger SV 5-2 at Volksparkstadion. 

The Black and Yellows had last won there in January 2012 and lost five of the eight meetings since. That's a terrible record considering the Dino, as HSV is called in Germany, fought relegation in most of those years.

Head coach Thomas Tuchel, who lost his first away trip to northern Germany at the helm of the Ruhr side in one of the worst performances of an excellent maiden campaign last year, acknowledged the recent history against Hamburg played a role in the preparations for the game.

"We made the result the focus of our match preparations," the 43-year-old said in his press conference. He continued:

We were aware of this long run without a win and that this game would be followed by the international break and a home game with Bayern [Munich]. Today we absolutely had to win. By taking this approach, we would have no room for any excuses. It didn't matter whether it was spectacular football or a battle. We wanted this result.

A result they got, even though Tuchel thought the margin of victory was too high after Hamburg threatened to make a game out of the affair in the second half.

"You can see we are lacking in form a bit and that there is lots to work on," he added. Indeed, even a 5-2 away win cannot cover up that Dortmund, for what feels like the umpteenth time in a row, failed to go the distance in a match. Being four goals up after 48 minutes against the last-placed team in the Bundesliga should not serve as an excuse to slacken the reins.

That is what they did, however, allowing Nicolai Muller to score from a simple counter-attack and with a shot from distance. It could have got troublesome for Dortmund, especially considering Michael Gregoritsch had a goal disallowed for the slightest of pulls on BVB defender Matthias Ginter.

Despite their two consecutive clean sheets, in the Revierderby against Schalke 04 and in the UEFA Champions League against Sporting CP, Dortmund's defence has looked susceptible in recent weeks. There seems to be little intensity in the way they protect their goal, and often all it takes to get behind the last line is a simple string of two or three quick passes.

Hamburg had infamously seen more players sent off this season (three) than they had scored goals (two), with American Bobby Wood previously the only player to find the net. Incredibly, Saturday's hosts had gone without a league goal since September 10. With Wood serving the first of a three-game suspension for violent conduct, it was hard to foresee who could trouble Dortmund.

Alas, the visitors have made life hard on themselves defensively against many opponents this campaign, having for example conceded three goals against FC Ingolstadt when they were the last-placed team in the Bundesliga. 

Getting his defence up to speed and playing sharper, more aggressive and more disciplined in their positioning will be Tuchel's biggest task. The return of team captain Marcel Schmelzer will help tremendously. Many only realise how good the 28-year-old is when he is out of the lineup.

Dortmund will need to find their stability quickly after the international break. Not only do Bayern come to town, but the Black and Yellows will also play upstarts 1899 Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt and Cologne in the final weeks ahead of the Bundesliga's winter break.

Against Hamburg, of course, they could rely on their attack and one man in particular to get the job done. In the perfect epilogue to the story of his midweek suspension, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was unstoppable, scoring four goals and assisting the fifth for Ousmane Dembele.

"I know I made a mistake last week, so I wanted to pay this back, to say sorry to everybody," the Gabonese said after the match, per the league's official site. "I realise that my trip to Milan was a mistake, and I wanted to make it up to the team and, above all, the coach."

Now that’s more like it from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 🔥 pic.twitter.com/VYuVT3BHHB

— B/R Football (@brfootball) November 6, 2016

Make up for it he did—in astonishing fashion. Aubameyang scored as many goals as Hamburg have managed all season in just 48 minutes.

It was the first quadruple for a Dortmund player since Robert Lewandowski's amazing night in the Champions League semi-final tie with Real Madrid in 2013 and the first in the Bundesliga since sporting director Michael Zorc hit four against Bayer Uerdingen in 1988.

Unlike both of those two performances, however, Aubameyang did it without a penalty—though, to be fair, two of the goals were tap-ins and goalkeeper Rene Adler could have kept his third out.

Aubameyang now has 11 goals in only nine matches this season, joining Cologne's Anthony Modeste at the top of the leaderboard. The Frenchman only managed a measly hat-trick against Hamburg on Matchday 9.

The 27-year-old Aubameyang will get all the attention after the match, but strong performances from teenagers Christian Pulisic and Emre Mor should not go unnoticed.

"In his 68 minutes, Pulisic assisted one, constantly drove Dortmund forward and looked the most creative player on the park," Deutsche Welle's Jonathan Harding wrote. "The 18-year-old really is having a breakout season."

Mor, meanwhile, showed maturity for Dortmund's second goal, pressuring Johan Djourou into a mistake—albeit with a little help from wing-back Lukasz Piszczek—and squaring the ball instead of trying to score himself.

https://twitter.com/navidjaaan/status/794953417668104192

Add in Dembele's goal after a lovely controlled assist from Aubameyang, and all three of Dortmund's wonderkids contributed their fair share in the big win.

5-1! A lovely two-touch attack, set up by none other than Aubameyang, is finished by Ousmane Dembélé. #bvb: pic.twitter.com/TZlR8ZYsFW

— FP (@FussballPhotos) November 5, 2016

It has to be noted Hamburg were not competitive in the first half. The hosts self-destructed with ludicrous mistakes and an utter lack of energy. It would have been interesting to see how the game would have developed had Dortmund not found an opener after just four minutes.

Tuchel somewhat curiously opted to play without his two best midfielders, as Julian Weigl and Mario Gotze sat on the bench for 90 minutes.

Against a massive Hamburg defence—head coach Markus Gisdol selected no fewer than seven natural defenders in his starting XI—it would likely have been difficult for Dortmund to chip away at that wall without the two best decision-makers in midfield.

As it came, Hamburg made it surprisingly easy for Dortmund to jump out to an insurmountable lead. That they still allowed the hosts to creep back into the game in the second half shows just how fragile the Black and Yellows' are at the moment.

"Today is not the right time for general criticism," Tuchel concluded after the match, and he was probably right. Having finally beaten their bogey team, fans ought to focus on the positives.

Aubameyang's positive reaction is atop that list.

                               

 Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

Borussia Dortmund advanced to the round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday evening, beating Sporting CP 1-0 at home in Westfalenstadion.

It is a massive accomplishment for the Black and Yellows to make it into the next round after only four matchdays, especially considering their domestic struggles at the moment. Thanks to Real Madrid's shocking 3-3 draw at Legia Warsaw, the Ruhr side even have the inside track to winning Group F.

The second match against Sporting resembled the first meeting in Portugal, as Dortmund came out of the gate flying, looking sumptuous in attack for stretches in the first half before completely losing the plot in the second period.

It is a mystery why this team is unable to give an accomplished 90-minute performance these days, as the last fully satisfying showing came on September 17 against SV Darmstadt in the Bundesliga. Even in their wins after that game, Dortmund either rode their luck defensively or forgot how to play forward with any kind of intensity at some point.

On Wednesday, part of the blame has to go to head coach Thomas Tuchel. The 43-year-old switched to a five-man defensive line at half-time in an attempt to counter the visitors' much more aggressive approach in comparison to the meeting two weeks prior.

Tuchel's counterpart, Jorge Jesus, who had spent the last two Champions League matches in the stands because of a suspension, had his team prepared for Dortmund's usually dominant playing style, focusing especially on Julian Weigl.

The 21-year-old had enjoyed acres of space in Lisbon, even scoring his first professional goal, but on Wednesday, he found himself marked tightly throughout the match. He still ended up with a team-leading 104 touches, per WhoScored.com, but he had little impact on their attacking display.

Luckily for Dortmund, Weigl was not required to have much of an impact in the first half. Sporting played with three defenders, situationally five, but still had massive problems on both wings. Christian Pulisic was arguably the best player on the pitch in the first 45 minutes, blazing past hapless Marvin Zeegelaar at left-wing-back time and time again.

The young American should have won a penalty inside the opening three minutes, when former Liverpool centre-back Sebastian Coates pulled away his standing leg in the box, but referee Danny Makkelie curiously waved play on.

Pulisic was not deterred, however, and played an important role in the lead-up to the game's decisive goal. Excellently controlling a long Sokratis Papastathopoulos pass, the 18-year-old laid off for Mario Gotze. Dortmund's No. 10 showed good vision in picking out right-back Matthias Ginter, whose pinpoint cross found Adrian Ramos' head.

Ramos Goal Dortmund Vs Lisbon pic.twitter.com/aHgJVWFjPn

— GoalsMatchDay (@GoalsMatchDay) November 2, 2016

Pulisic could have doubled the lead after a nifty one-two with Gotze 11 minutes from the intermission, and both Ousmane Dembele and Raphael Guerreiro had excellent chances to give Dortmund a more comfortable lead as well.

It was arguably the most fluid the team has looked in weeks and, as stat provider Opta indicated, allowed many players to get in on the action:

7 - The 7 shots by @BVB in the 1st half were fired by 7 different players. Variable. #bvbscp #ChampionsLeague

— OptaFranz (@OptaFranz) November 2, 2016

In the second period, though, the Black and Yellows created nothing going forward. Their only two scoring opportunities were two free-kicks Rui Patricio in Sporting's goal had little problem dealing with.

Tuchel's tactical switch, aimed at keeping the visitors at bay, only managed to stymie his own attack. Sporting still found themselves with too much space in Dortmund's defensive third and benefited from inaccuracies in their passing.

Marc Bartra and Guerreiro showed some serious rust in their performances, giving the ball away countless times in the buildup. Per WhoScored.com, Bartra ended up with a pass-completion rate of only 81 per cent, compared to 94.2 per cent for Sokratis, the other starter at centre-back.

"Our passing distances were very long," Tuchel told German broadcaster ZDF after the match (h/t the club's official website). "That's why we needed a lot of time to shift the play. Our strategy [in the second half] was to control the match via four offensive midfielders, but that didn't work so well."

Indeed, Tuchel's quest for better balance backfired dramatically. A better side than Sporting would likely have punished Dortmund for it. As it was, though, the visitors never came too close to an equaliser despite pushing for it with might for some stretches.

"We defended well in the second half, so it's a fair result, even if it wasn't a gala performance from us," defender Ginter said after the match, again per the club's website. The 2014 FIFA World Cup winner added that "you could sense we were a bit uncertain. Of course we are not exactly oozing self-confidence after the last few games."

In the context of those last few games—Dortmund had only won one match in regular time, the first meeting with Sporting, since the end of September—the end justified the means on Wednesday. Tuchel and his team knew a win would be enough to advance to the next round. Somehow, they got it.

The excitement is likely to be short-lived, however. Not only will Dortmund face bogey team Hamburger SV on Saturday, the run-up to the Bundesliga match is likely to be overshadowed by the Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang sideshow.

The Gabon international was left out of the squad for the Sporting match for internal reasons, as both chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke and Tuchel declared before the match. Even though they stayed mum on the reasons why Dortmund would pass on playing their star striker in a key contest, Tuchel implicitly confirmed it was a suspension.

After the game, he said, per the Mirror's Alex Richards: "It was very difficult to do without him. But it was that I had no choice. The decision was made [Tuesday] afternoon. In the next game, he will be back. Internal reasons means internal. I do not account for speculation."

Can’t tell if Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or Inspector Gadget 🤔. pic.twitter.com/okKCtiOuFU

— B/R Football (@brfootball) November 2, 2016

Richards reported the reason for the suspension was an unsanctioned trip to Italy on Monday, just two days ahead of the important Champions League meeting with Sporting. He wrote: "Tuchel had been particularly furious with Aubameyang, a player he believes should now be seen to be acting as a leader by other members of his young side."

Whatever the reasons for the suspensions were, it is a needless distraction for a team that is not exactly firing on all cylinders. As one of only a few experienced players in the squad, the 27-year-old should know better than to take focus away from the pitch.

It was only fitting, though, that his replacement, Ramos, would score the winner and generally play fairly well. ESPN FC's Stefan Buczko rated the Colombian at seven out of 10, the joint-highest rating with Pulisic and Gotze. He noted Ramos "acted as a vital target man throughout the game to secure the ball with his back to goal."

The 30-year-old has a pretty strong record under Tuchel when playing up front, having scored 12 goals and assisted a further four in under 1,800 minutes of action—20 matches' worth of playing time—as a striker, per Transfermarkt.

That said, the Aubameyang sideshow put the team at risk and is therefore unacceptable. It remains to be seen whether it will have a lasting effect on the relationship between the striker and the club. Given the fact he has always given his all for the team, however, chances are it will only motivate him.

In that sense, the suspension would serve a purpose for the team. Having advanced to the round of 16 in the Champions League would not be the only positive from another mixed performance against Sporting.

                           

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.

Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was left out of the team’s UEFA Champions League showdown with Sporting CP on Wednesday, with contrasting reports emerging as to why the decision was taken.

Per Mark Ashenden of Sky Sports, Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke confirmed the striker’s surprise omission from the clash at Westfalenstadion was due to “internal reasons.”

Bild (h/t Chris Davie of Metro) has since suggested he was left out after using his mobile phone during a pre-game briefing. However, according to Alex Richards of the Daily Mirror, the reason for the reprimand was an unsanctioned trip Aubameyang made to Italy earlier in the week; the forward reportedly attended a party in Varese at Hotel Villa Borghi on Monday.

As noted by former Norway international and Bundesliga pundit Jan Aage Fjortoft, the decision not to play the 27-year-old looked to be a late one from Dortmund:

Aubameyang NOT in Dortmund-squad!!!!! His match-shirt was ready in the dressing-room, but because of "internal affairs" no Aubameyang now

— Jan Aage Fjørtoft 🇳🇴 (@JanAageFjortoft) November 2, 2016

His absence didn’t prove to be too costly. Indeed, the man who replaced Aubameyang in the starting XI against the Lisbon side, Adrian Ramos, netted the only goal of the game, securing his side’s passage into the knockout stages of the competition.

As we can see here, the former Saint-Etienne forward watched the match from the stands in striking attire:

Can’t tell if Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or Inspector Gadget 🤔. pic.twitter.com/okKCtiOuFU

— B/R Football (@brfootball) November 2, 2016

While Dortmund were able to cope without the Gabon international on this occasion, they lack an edge when he’s not included in the XI.

Aubameyang has developed into the team’s most important player over the last couple of seasons, leading the line with pace, power and composure last term. The spectacular form he showcased in 2015-16 has carried over, with 10 goals netted in all competitions this season already, including three in the Champions League.

Ramos, in fairness, is a fine deputy and a player who’d be pushing for starts at most clubs in European football. However, as noted by football writer Clark Whitney, the sooner Aubameyang is back in the side for Dortmund, the better:

https://twitter.com/Mr_Bundesliga/status/793932025979879426

The Gabonese star has previously been linked with a move away from the club, and you sense this marginalisation will trigger more talk of a switch. Per James Whaling of the Daily Mirror, both Manchester City and Real Madrid have been tipped as suitors in the past.

Despite their impressive showings in Europe, Dortmund’s form in the Bundesliga has been inconsistent. They sit in sixth place, without a win in their last four league games. Manager Thomas Tuchel will be hopeful his hard-line stance on Aubameyang will invigorate the goal-getter when they visit Hamburg on Saturday.

"It's not a crisis," Borussia Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Burki said after Saturday's disappointing goalless draw with Schalke 04 saw the Black and Yellows drop another two points in a winless month of October, per the club's official website.

The Switzerland international further followed the company line: "Our team is young, and we have a lot of players out injured."

It is undeniable that a major injury crisis has thrown a spanner in Dortmund's works this season, as up to 11 first-team players missed matches with various ailments, among them key performers such as team captain Marcel Schmelzer and superstar Marco Reus, who has yet to make his debut in the campaign.

However important the personnel situation is, it is only a mitigating circumstance, not an explanation or even excuse for Dortmund's sluggish showings at about the halfway mark of the first half of the 2016/17 season.

Sitting sixth in the league table, eight points behind perennial champions Bayern Munich, the Ruhr side also trail flying newcomers RB Leipzig and surprise packages 1899 Hoffenheim, Cologne and Hertha BSC. Fifteen points from nine matchdays see them level with presumed relegation candidates Eintracht Frankfurt and SC Freiburg.

At the same point last season, in head coach Thomas Tuchel's maiden campaign at the Westfalenstadion, Dortmund were seven points adrift from the Bavarian giants, but they had won 20 themselves, good for second place at the time.

They would run away from the other 16 teams in the league, ending up with 78 points, a whopping 18 ahead of Bayer Leverkusen in third place and 26 ahead of Schalke in the first UEFA Europa League spot.

Solid performances in the UEFA Champions League, where Dortmund will qualify for the round of 16 with a win over Sporting CP on Wednesday at home, have covered up any talk of a real crisis for the time being, but there can be no two ways about it: The Black and Yellows are not living up to expectations so far this season.

The injuries play their part in that, of course. Ahead of the season, Bleacher Report identified depth as the team's biggest strength. It is a strength that has been put to a thorough test in the first 15 matches across all competitions.

With experienced players missing, the team's many youngsters were forced into action more frequently than anyone anticipated. Teething problems naturally ensued, with new signings Ousmane Dembele and Emre Mor highlighting areas to improve with at-times maddening performances.

The club's self-developed teenagers, namely Christian Pulisic, Felix Passlack and, more recently, Jakob Bruun Larsen have largely done well but can obviously not perform at the highest level every three or four days during a hectic run of games.

That said, there were still enough veterans on the pitch in all the games Dortmund failed to win or even only play somewhat decently in. The last few weeks have shown that players such as long-serving right-back Lukasz Piszczek and midfielder Shinji Kagawa may not have much of a future in Dortmund going by their current level of performances.

ESPN FC's John Duerden discussed the possibility of Kagawa moving to his home country in the January transfer window, judging that the playmaker "has struggled to recapture the form that made him a star in his first German stint from 2010 to 2012."

The Black and Yellows have received little from those two and only inconsistent efforts from other more experienced players. Mario Gotze, for one, is improving a tad slowly during his second stint with the club, even though things are clearly on the up.

Chances are Dortmund will get better with the return of players such as Raphael Guerreiro, Andre Schurrle and Marc Bartra, but an improved personnel situation is unlikely to serve as a miracle cure for the team's surprisingly manifold number of issues.

It is quite obvious that the wholesale changes the summer transfer window brought have had a bigger impact than most would have anticipated.

Losing team captain Mats Hummels, midfield mastermind Ilkay Gundogan and scoring machine Henrikh Mkhitaryan in one summer was always going to present unique challenges, but the feeling was that Dortmund did as best they could to offset the losses with eight signings.

So far, however, they are ailing in all three areas where they lost their star players.

Without Hummels, the defence tends to look unorganised—which, to be fair, also has to do with ever-changing pairings in the middle and on the wings due to injuries.

Without Hummels and Gundogan, the build-up play seems to lack purpose. Dortmund still have an inordinate amount of possession, but most of it comes down to meticulous passing in areas where the opponent has nothing to fear. 

Raphael Honigstein bemoaned "a lack of ideas in possession" in a piece for the Guardian, explaining that "some observers [are] longing for the more helter-skelter approach seen under Jurgen Klopp."

Without Mkhitaryan, the attack is far more predictable, as no one has emerged who can decide games with one stroke of genius, something the Armenian did a number of times during a fantastic last campaign under Tuchel.

Now, there is hope that the 43-year-old can settle his defence much like he did last season, when Dortmund conceded 23 goals in the first half of the Bundesliga season and only 11 in the second. Even though Matthias Ginter has played well for the most part, the Black and Yellows started shipping goals when he replaced the injured Bartra in September. 

And between Reus, Schurrle, Dembele, Mor, Pulisic and striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, there is an abundance of quality in attack. Dortmund will score goals against most teams.

The tender spot in midfield, however, is a problem that will likely bother Tuchel and his team throughout the season.

Even though Guerreiro has impressed in a midfield role, Gonzalo Castro has found a better consistency in his performances, Gotze is improving and the club's transfer business has rightfully received a lot of praise, as this writer argued in an earlier piece, Dortmund's failure to properly replace Gundogan could be the team's downfall this season.

Sebastian Rode, a €12 million signing from Bayern, the only experienced central midfielder the Ruhr side added in the summer, has all the makings of a failed acquisition. The 26-year-old's reluctance to take any risk in his passing has made him the butt of many a joke from both fans and analysts.

If he is to play a significant role, it may well have to come as a wing-back, for Dortmund suffer too much when he plays a central role in midfield—at least in games where they dominate possession.

It is fair to ask whether spending a total of €64 million on Rode and attackers Dembele, Mor and Schurrle was the best way to appropriate transfer funds in the summer if it meant the, arguably, most important player in Tuchel's system, Gundogan, would not be replaced.

It is entirely possible that this complaint will look ridiculous in no time, of course. That is, if Guerreiro keeps impressing in his midfield role and the youngsters come along nicely.

For now, though, Dortmund's problems on the pitch, most of which can be located in the team's midfield, have as much or more to do with the transfer window as they do with the injury crisis.

Pointing solely to the latter and expecting things to magically get better when most of the missing players return is a poor strategy. Do so at your own peril. You may well be in for a rude awakening.

                                                

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.