Blue Bumblebee: Five players who managed to play for Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund

Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea have never met. But the Champions League play-off draw finally brought these teams together. I thought it was a good occasion to remember the players who managed to try on the jerseys of both clubs!

Thorgan Hazard (Chelsea 2012-2015, Borussia Dortmund 2019-present)

Let’s start with the current players of both clubs. However, there is already a caveat here: despite the fact that Hazard still belongs to the German team, right now he has gone to PSV for six months (and has already scored there in his debut match against Feyenoord).

At Chelsea, Thorgan has always looked like an attachment to Eden. They even moved into the same transfer window: Hazard-middle (there is also a younger, Killian, the last one in the photo below) signed an agreement with the Londoners at the end of July 2012.

In mid-August, Thorgan played for the reserve team against Manchester City before being loaned out to Zulte Waregem by the end of the transfer window. There he stayed for the 2012/13 season and the 2013/14 season. Then there was a loan to Borussia M, a year after which Thorgan was bought out for 8 million euros.

Chelsea had a buyback option, and Hazard himself was eager to return to London someday. But, without noticing it himself, he spent five seasons in Mönchengladbach. At the Bundesliga level, the Belgian made a name for himself (in the 2018/19 season he scored 13 + 12 in 35 matches!), So in 2019 he went to Dortmund for promotion for 25 million euros.

In Borussia D, Thorgan had good matches, but Hazard did not perform consistently brightly, as it happened in Mönchengldbach. With the Bumblebees, the Belgian won the German Cup in the 2020/21 season.

Christian Pulisic (Borussia 2016-2019, Chelsea 2019-present)

The current player on the other side of the barricades is Christian Pulisic. At the age of 16, Christian’s family moved to Germany. Little Pulisic was able to almost start playing for the youth team of Borussia (the Croatian roots of his grandfather allowed him to get a European passport). It was in February 2015, and already in January of the following year he played for the main team for the first time: these were the second halves of two friendly matches in a row. In the first he scored himself, in the second he gave an assist.

And rushed. In February, Christian made his Bundesliga debut under… Thomas Tuchel! The coach greatly admired him and gradually began to give more and more time. Pulisic began to score and break records: for example, in 2017, he scored against Benfica in the 1/8 finals of the Champions League and became the youngest player to score in the main European Cup. The icing on the cake was the victory in the German Cup final in the 2016/17 season.

Christian’s main problem is trauma. It started back in Dortmund, but the player’s talent forced Chelsea to bet on the American no matter what. In January 2019, Chelsea bought Pulisic for nearly £60m, but kept him at Dortmund until the end of the season. Christian was seen as a replacement for Eden Hazard, who was finishing his final season with the Blues.

It all started brightly: two canceled goals in the UEFA Super Cup, an injury, a perfect hat-trick against Burnley, goals in the next two matches, another injury … Thanks to the coronavirus pause, Pulisic recovered and helped Frank Lampard to the top 4 at the end of the season : Together with Olivier Giroud, they earned points for Chelsea all July. In the FA Cup final of the same season, Christian scored five minutes after the start of the match, but … in the second half he was injured again, and Arsenal took the trophy. However, during the season, Pulisic scored 11 + 10 on a goal + pass.

Taking the top ten after the departure of Willian, Pulisic in the 2020/21 season did not come out until early October. There were occasional flare-ups in his game, but along with the rest of the team, Pulisic ran out of steam by December. But the arrival of Tuchel gave Christian fresh strength: he scored a goal against West Bromwich and Crystal Palace in early April, and at the end of the month he opened the scoring against Real Madrid. In the second leg, Pulisic came on as a substitute and gave an assist to Mason Mount. In the final, the American did not get into the starting lineup, which is why he was very offended by Tuchel. In the second half, he could score and make the score 2-0, but he lacked accuracy.

 

The 2021/22 season began in a peculiar way for Pulisic: he scored in the first round, but immediately after he passed a positive test for covid, and later also twisted his ankle in training. The next time he entered the field was only in November, and the next goal he scored against Liverpool on 2 January. Surprisingly, since then, Christian has not been injured, but has received almost no playing time. His rare outings on the field were remembered for a faded and uncertain game. It seems that it was not possible to work fruitfully with Tuchel for the second time: back in the summer there were rumors that Christian wanted to leave Chelsea. Under Potter, the American played several good matches, but then an injury intervened again – Pulisic is unlikely to play against the former team.

Michy Batshuayi (Chelsea 2016 – 2022, Borussia 2018)

The Belgian striker looked promising at Marseille, but as soon as he moved to Stamford Bridge, Mischi immediately became the “second Drogba” due to the identity of the route. Honestly played the role of the second striker, replacing Diego Costa. Surely Batshuayi would like to do it more often: at least in the first years, a twinkle was visible in his eyes. The brightest moment of his career for Chelsea was the golden goal against West Brom, which guaranteed the Londoners the championship.

But Conte did not give this time to Batshuayi, replacing one Spaniard with another in the summer: Costa was replaced by Morata. Mishi stayed until winter, and then went to Borussia on loan as part of a triple transfer: Giroud went to Chelsea, and Arsenal took Aubameyang.

Misha went on five loan spells as a Blues player, but it was the trip to Dortmund that turned out to be the most productive. In the very first match, against Cologne, Batshuayi scored a double, and in total he played 10 matches in the Bundesliga and scored 7 goals. Why so few matches played? Unfortunately, Misha got injured in mid-April and was out for the rest of the season. This is probably why he did not stay in Germany.

 

Then there was a much less successful loan to Valencia with one goal scored. Batshuayi managed to hook one season under Lampard (and even scored against Ajax in Amsterdam!), but Frank was not impressed, and went to Crystal Palace. Then there was a loan to Besiktas, the end of the contract with Chelsea in the summer of 2022 and a transfer to Fenerbahce, with whom Misha is fighting for the championship right now.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Borussia 2013-2018, Chelsea 2022-present)

The Gabonese has become a real star in the Bundesliga: 144 matches and 98 goals in the championship alone. So much is known about Aubameyang’s career at Borussia that it makes no sense to list it all. Pierre took the German Supercup twice with Dortmund and lifted the German Cup once over his head. The latter happened with Thomas Tuchel, under whom Aubameyang had his best season at Borussia Dortmund.

Tuchel and Aubameyang clearly counted on fruitful cooperation at Chelsea. The transfer seemed logical: the club sent Lukaku on loan, only Armando Broya was a clean forward. But the logic was very quickly violated by Todd Bowley, who sent the German coach to resign.

Potter Aubameyang came in handy only at first: the Gabonese scored the ball in both matches against Milan, and also helped to defeat Crystal Palace. But after the World Cup, Pierre disappeared from the radar.

Yes, he trains, but lately he has not been included in the application for the match, and Potter has excluded him from the Champions League. Now there is talk of a possible loan to Los Angeles, but judging by the information of Matt Lowe from The Telegraph, the player himself wants to show his best side in London.

Andre Schurrle (Chelsea 2013-2015, Borussia 2016-2020)

The first transfer of Jose Mourinho’s second arrival was not too successful, but Schurrle managed to leave some bright imprints in the memory of Chelsea fans. In March 2014, in his first season in London, Andre offended the neighboring Fulham with a hat-trick. In the same month, Andre also participated in the defeat of Arsenal, scoring the second (and giving an assist on the first) of six unanswered goals against Arsene Wenger’s team.

Schurrle managed to take the Premier League and the League Cup from Chelsea, but failed to gain a foothold in the base. Borussia took the player for 30 million euros for five years, but Andre played for Dortmund even less than for Chelsea: only two seasons, 51 matches and 8 goals. Then there were leases to Fulham and Spartak. After a business trip to Moscow, the German never recovered and ended his career at the age of 29. The cause was injuries: Schurrle got out of the infirmary less and less.