Put Robert Lewandowski alongside Erling Haaland, with Marco Reus finding the space behind them and Jude Bellingham arriving from midfield. Add Ousmane Dembélé’s dribbling and Achraf Hakimi’s speed down the right. Borussia Dortmund’s former players can fill a team with enough attacking options to make choosing the starting eleven feel like the easy part.
Dortmund’s pathway for young players has brought an extraordinary succession of talent through the club. Take former first-team players from its recent generations at their career peaks, and the result stretches from a prolific strike partnership to a midfield capable of carrying, controlling and creating. It also reveals how often Dortmund have had to assemble their next team while replacing the best parts of the previous one.
Bayern Munich host Dortmund on October 31 with both clubs on 17 points after seven Bundesliga matches. The rivalry runs through this imagined side, too. Lewandowski, Mats Hummels and Raphaël Guerreiro all made the direct move from Dortmund to Bayern, linking the competition between the clubs to decisions that reshaped their squads.
The team takes a 4-2-2-2 shape. Roman Bürki starts in goal behind Hakimi, Manuel Akanji, Hummels and Guerreiro. İlkay Gündoğan and Bellingham form the midfield pair, with Dembélé and Reus operating ahead of them. Lewandowski and Haaland lead the attack, bringing together two Dortmund careers that were separated by more than five years.
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Reus and the cost of starting over
Reus is the player who connects the generations. His senior Dortmund career ran from 2012 to 2024, producing 429 appearances and 170 goals. He played in the Champions League finals of 2013 and 2024, won the German Cup twice and stayed as teammates took their careers elsewhere.
“Dortmund means everything to me,” Reus told UEFA before his final appearance for the club. He described the supporters as a major reason he’d stayed, alongside the feeling that he was needed. Dortmund and Reus eventually agreed not to extend his contract. Their separation came after 12 senior seasons, with a long shared history behind it.
Lewandowski and Haaland offer a more compressed measure of Dortmund’s attacking quality. Lewandowski scored 103 goals in 187 competitive appearances before leaving in 2014. Haaland arrived in January 2020 and scored 86 in 89 games before his move to Manchester City in 2022. Pair them at their peaks and a defense would have to account for Lewandowski dropping into combinations while Haaland attacked the space beyond it.
Reus could work between the lines, with Dembélé receiving to the right and forcing defenders to decide whether to follow him inside. Gündoğan would offer a means of controlling the tempo. Bellingham could carry possession through pressure and arrive later in the box. Hakimi and Guerreiro would provide width when the creators moved toward the center.
The same movements would require discipline. If Bellingham advanced while both fullbacks attacked, Gündoğan could be left covering too much ground ahead of Akanji and Hummels. A coach would need to stagger the runs and decide who stayed behind the ball. The attacking options are persuasive; making them work together would depend on those quieter assignments.
Jadon Sancho has the strongest claim to alter the selection. His first Dortmund spell brought 50 goals and 64 assists in 137 appearances, before his later loan return. Dembélé’s 2025 Ballon d’Or strengthens his case when the measure is career peak. A team weighted more heavily toward sustained Dortmund contribution would give Sancho a substantial argument for the same position. Christian Pulisic, with 127 first-team appearances for Dortmund, is another strong attacking option left outside the XI.
The eligibility rule also leaves Antonio Rüdiger outside the eleven. He spent part of his youth career at Dortmund but never played for the first team. Bürki keeps the goalkeeper choice within the generations featured here; a wider historical selection would bring Jens Lehmann, who left for Arsenal in 2003, into the discussion.
The departures followed different routes. Hakimi spent two seasons at Dortmund on loan from Real Madrid, then joined Inter in a permanent transfer from Madrid. Lewandowski and Guerreiro joined Bayern after their Dortmund contracts expired, turning the end of one club’s agreement into an opportunity for its rival.
Hummels left for Bayern in 2016, returned to Dortmund in 2019 and played in another European final before his second spell ended in 2024. His career includes both the loss of an important defender and the value Dortmund recovered by bringing him back. Bürki’s exit was different again: his contract was ended early ahead of his move to St. Louis CITY in 2022.
Dembélé and Bellingham generated enormous transfer payments. Their fixed fees were worth about $117 million and $115 million respectively at current exchange rates, before performance-related additions. Barcelona agreed to Dembélé’s move in 2017; Real Madrid completed Bellingham’s in 2023. Dortmund gained money to reinvest and the task of rebuilding around a different set of players.
Bellingham had already made a lasting impression before he arrived. Birmingham retired his No. 22 when he left for Dortmund at 17. Dortmund then gave him 132 first-team appearances across three seasons. His development connects the work done at his boyhood club with the responsibility and European experience he gained in Germany.
Dortmund’s own corporate strategy acknowledges that financial considerations can lead to a sale even when the sporting preference would be to retain a player. The club also explains that investment in the squad may be postponed if it requires new borrowing. Keeping the team competitive means making decisions about the next season while protecting the ability to fund the seasons after it.
The difference in resources is substantial. Deloitte’s comparison of 2024/25 revenue placed Dortmund 12th in the world and Bayern third. Bayern generated approximately 62% more revenue, excluding player and coach transfer fees. Dortmund still belongs among football’s wealthiest clubs, with resources that bring expectations. The gap helps explain the difficulty of competing for talent against the richest buyers without settling the merits of every transfer decision.
Dortmund have also turned their recruitment into major results. The club won consecutive Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012 and completed its first league-and-cup double in 2012. In 2023, Dortmund and Bayern finished level on 71 points, with Bayern taking the title on goal difference. The opportunity to win existed alongside the financial disadvantage.
Keeping every player in this XI would have changed the conditions that helped bring later ones to Dortmund. A retained striker occupies minutes as well as a place on the wage bill. An established creator changes the responsibility available to a younger recruit. Lewandowski’s continued presence would have shaped the attacking vacancy Haaland eventually filled. The imagined team combines peaks from careers that developed through different opportunities.
Wembley in 2024 brought several of those paths together. Hummels started for Dortmund and Reus came off the bench. Bellingham played for Madrid and supplied the pass for Vinícius Júnior to score the second goal in a 2-0 win. The player who stayed, the defender who returned and the midfielder who moved on all appeared in the same final.
Bellingham finished his first season away from Dortmund as a European champion. Reus had just played his 429th and final competitive game for the club.
