Borussia Dortmund turnaround needs Juventus triumph to stave off Jurgen Klopp’s sell-by date

There have been so many distinct faces of Borussia Dortmund in the past four months, that Juventus, arriving in the Ruhr on Wednesday night with a slender, 2-1 advantage for the second leg of their Uefa Champions League last-16 tie, would be forgiven for wondering if it has all been a ruse, to confuse the opposition ahead of the most important 90, or perhaps 120 minutes, of the German club's season.

Which Dortmund will Juve face? The dynamic, energetic version that, even in their autumn-to-winter stretch of ebbing confidence, seemed to be stimulated by the floodlights of midweek contests, by the rousing sound of the Champions League anthem? That is the vibrant Dortmund who, while slouching in the Bundesliga, still racked more attempts on goal per match than any other club in Europe’s elite competition other than Bayern Munich, Real Madrid or Barcelona.

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Or will Juventus confront the curiously impotent Dortmund that apart from an eight-minute blitz of three goals in the derby against Schalke last month, now find Bundesliga defences improbably hard to penetrate?

Both Dortmund’s last two fixtures, against Hamburg and Cologne, have finished 0-0.

Jurgen Klopp’s team are no longer under serious threat of relegation, as their perplexing league position had said they were at the end of 2014, when they propped up the rest of the German top flight.

That looked like a cruel parody of their established status as the most serious modern challenger to Bayern in the Bundesliga.

Now 10th in the domestic table, they need to make up a 12-point gap over nine matches to be contention for the Champions League next season, unless they win that trophy in Berlin in June.

For a club with such a defined identity, a black-and-yellow buzz of vigour and speed, it has been a confusing season, with enough setbacks and troughs of domestic form that questions about their methods and approach now arise.

Is Klopp reaching a sell-by date as a motivator, at least in the Dortmund dressing-room?

The high-profile coach has been in charge for seven years, has a contract for another three, but he has suffered watching his players unable to press as ferociously as their instincts tell them to, and seeing a squad look threadbare when three or four senior men have been out injured. Klopp told uefa.com: “We are not as dogmatic a side as some people seem to suggest,” in answer to the theory that Dortmund lack a Plan B.

What he feels they do have as an ally under all circumstances is the noise of the Westfalenstadion. Juventus go to an arena in which 12 of the past 15 European matches have been home wins.

Klopp must do without full-back Lukas Piszczek, and has a doubt over the fitness of Nuri Sahin in the centre of midfield. But most of the stalwarts who have given Dortmund, Champions League finalists in 2013, their strong identity over the past two years are present: the quicksilver Marco Reus up front, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Ilkay Gundogan in midfield, and Mats Hummels marshalling what has lately become a hermetically tight defence.

sports@thenational.ae

Borussia Dortmund turnaround needs Juventus triumph to stave off Jurgen Klopp’s sell-by date

Jurgen Klopp’s team are no longer under serious threat of relegation, as their perplexing league position had said they were at the end of 2014, when they propped up the rest of the German top flight, writes Ian Hawkey.