German soccer club Borussia Dortmund aren’t unfamiliar with developing some of Europe’s biggest stars only to have them snapped up by financially stronger sides. Players such as Robert Lewandowski and only last year stars like Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Mats Hummels and Ilkay Gündogan left the German side. Following in the footsteps of his former teammates Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang now looks to be on his way out of the Ruhr Valley.
The destination?
For at least the past year there’s been speculation of where Aubameyang will be playing his soccer following on from life in the Ruhr Valley. At first it was thought that perhaps the Gabon international would look towards Liverpool and the Premier League where he would team up with his former manager in Jurgen Klopp. After all it was Klopp who brought Aubameyang to Dortmund and set him on his way to stardom. However since these rumours have been about, the player has said in various interviews that if he is to leave Dortmund he hopes it will be for Spanish giants Real Madrid. Aubameyang claims that he promised his grandad from a young age that he would one day be a part of the star studded side in Madrid. Although this will still hurt for fans of Borussia Dortmund it is refreshing to see a player wanting a move away from his club for reasons that don’t relate to money. This is all well and good but do Real Madrid need him? There are some players who have a massive reputation to the point where they can pretty much invite themselves into any club, most notably Zlatan Ibrahimovic fits this description perfectly. But in my opinion at least Aubameyang isn’t good enough to be able to decide his destination for himself. Real Madrid have one of the best attacking lineups in the world, this means that if the move does materialise either Aubameyang or someone like Benzema or Morata will find themselves getting very few minutes of soccer. The Madrid side is already too saturated with quality attacking players, meaning that ultimately someone is going to miss out and there’s always the chance that this could backfire on Aubameyang if he doesn’t perform from the off.
How will this effect Borussia Dortmund?
It’s no secret that Borussia Dortmund are one of the best clubs in the world for nurturing the best young talent on the planet. Therefore theres a good chance that you wouldn’t have even heard of Aubameyang’s potential replacements yet. But going by what we know already at the club there are a fair few candidates capable of filing his void. Already established players capable of the feat would be Marco Reus and Andre Schürrle. But with Reus being incredibly injury prone and Schürrle being fairly inconsistent, yet to gain the full faith of coach Thomas Tuchel, both of these players seem unlikely options. It’s when you turn to Dortmund’s youth that you realise the future after Aubameyang is an exciting one. Just this season Der BVB brought in young attacking talent in the form of Ousmane Dembele, Emre Mor and Alexander Isak. Any of these players could become the superstar of tomorrow for Dortmund but we’ll just have to wait and see. My bets would be on Dembele. The French attacker has made a strong start to life in Dortmund and shown great promise from a young age. Although he is currently a winger it’s important to remember that Aubameyang was a winger until the departure of Robert Lewandowski, therefore could the departure of Aubameyang see Dembele flourish in the centre?
