Fatigue and injuries dimming Borussia Dortmund’s once-bright Champions League hopes

Once high-flying German side now scrambling to fill holes in their line-up

Dortmund's Gabonese striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Hanover's Danish midfielder Leon Andreasen vie for the ball during their Bundesliga match in Dortmund on October 19, 2013. Patrik Stollarz / AFPShow less

Some time over the last, breathless 18 months, Borussia Dortmund mislaid their element of surprise. The team who blitzed their way past Premier League title holders Manchester City, then Spanish champions Real Madrid before giving Bayern Munich an enthralling tussle in the Champions League final at Wembley, will head along the same path tonight acutely aware they are not quite what they were.

A measure of that can be detected in how strongly Real Madrid, convincingly blitzed by Borussia in the semi-final last season, are favoured to go through at Dortmund's expense over two legs of their quarter-final.

Dortmund’s fading aura might be diagnosed in several ways. Fatigue is an obvious one.

“What has happened to us in terms of injuries this season is just incredible,” Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp said before setting off for the Spanish capital.

Of the XI who made the same journey last April, to complete a 4-3 aggregate victory over Madrid and reach the final, only four are likely to start against a side whose fitness concerns are minimal.

Cristiano Ronaldo's cut knee is not deemed a grave impediment to his participation.

Klopp, by contrast, will be without defenders Neven Subotic and Marcel Schmelzer, and midfield trio Ilkay Gundogan, Sven Bender and Jakub Blaszczykowski. Worse, Robert Lewandowksi, the centre-forward, is suspended.

Since the last meeting of the two clubs, Mario Goetze has left, to join Bayern, which Lewandowski will also do this summer.

Klopp’s challenge is how to cover those positions and revive the high-speed, aggressive, compact style that has gained Dortmund their successes – two Bundesliga titles in the past four years, plus a German Cup in 2012 – under his watch.

The domestic version of his side this season has often appeared too docile. They may well maintain last year's second place in the Bundesliga but Dortmund have not been capable of stopping Bayern – whom they trail by 23 points – from completing the quickest conclusion to a German title race in history.

Dortmund’s task, in a land where a predatory Bayern regularly target and snatch their best footballers, is to be shrewd in their scouting and recruiting. The most significant additions since last season have been Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, not players likely to illuminate World Cup tournaments in their career spans, being from Armenia and Gabon respectively.

But for that, they carry a potential element of surprise, of the sort that stunned Madrid 11 months ago.

Aubameyang looks the likeliest candidate to replace Lewandowski, assuming Klopp is confident he is fully over the flu that restricted him to a half-hour appearance from the bench in the weekend win against Stuttgart.

Aubayemang has 13 Bundesliga goals from 19 starts this season, an endorsement of the idea that his skills set made him “the perfect fit” for Dortmund – as he said when he arrived last summer.

Specifically, he thought his startling pace would suit Klopp’s emphasis on rapid counter-attack. At 1.85 metres tall, he also has a good leap and is useful in the air.

Aubayemang, 24, is brisk. As a teenager at AC Milan, he was timed at 3.9 seconds over 30 metres. Seldom short of self-confidence, he boasts he has since shaved two-tenths of a second off that.

He comes from a distinguished footballing family. His father, Pierre, was a stalwart of the Gabon national team in the 1980s and 1990s and had a long club career in France. Three of Pierre’s sons have represented the national team, though Pierre-Emerick, who led the line for Gabon at the 2012 Olympic Games, has been the most successful.

Last season, for Saint Etienne, he was second to Paris Saint-Germain’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the French Ligue 1 goalscorers’ rankings, and Dortmund were not alone for their interest in signing him. Dortmund paid about €13 million (Dh65.8m).

He could hardly have made a stronger first impression. He hit a hat-trick on the opening day of the Bundesliga season, against Augsburg. His goals in the German Cup have also been important in guiding Dortmund to the semi-final.

In the Champions League, Aubameyang's distinctive somersault goal celebrations have been fewer. He registered his only strike in a 3-1 win over Napoli.

Lewandowski has been Dortmund’s principal spearhead in Europe with six goals so far. The Pole is a hard act to understudy.

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