Breaking Down How Borussia Dortmund Can Get the Best out of Nuri Sahin

Euro 2016 was a mixed bag for Borussia Dortmund players.

On the one hand, there's someone like newly signed left-back Raphael Guerreiro, who won the Euros with Portugal and was one of the breakout performers, earning a spot in the official Team of the Tournament, per UEFA.com.

On the other, there were quite a few players who experienced disappointment, be it on a personal level—as in not getting to play—or in terms of the results their countries managed.

One man who fits both criteria in a way is Nuri Sahin. The 27-year-old played only 45 minutes in an utterly unsatisfying Euros campaign for Turkey, coming on at half-time in a 3-0 defeat against Spain. However, the tournament still was valuable for the midfielder.

For starters, making the final 23-man squad was an accomplishment in itself after not having started a single game for Fatih Terim's side since June 1, 2014. A knee injury and a somewhat mysterious tendon irritation had kept him off the field for most of the two years in between, with Sahin only appearing in 21 competitive matches over the last two seasons for the Black and Yellows.

"When 2016 started I said to myself I want to be fit and in the pot to go there [to the Euros] at the end of the season," Sahin had told Davis Van Opdorp of Deutsche Welle in March, roughly one month after his comeback against FC Porto in the UEFA Europa League.

Sahin's inclusion in that game came out of the proverbial blue, seeing as he hadn't played in 355 days. And not only did he feature in the starting XI, the Turkey international looked like he hadn't missed a beat, bossing the middle of the park in the absence of Ilkay Gundogan.

However, it would remain the only really strong performance from Dortmund's No. 18 for the rest of the season. That's not to say that he played badly when given a chance, just that he wasn't in a condition to make a big impact, which was to be expected after a such a long absence. It's no coincidence that Sahin didn't play in the DFB-Pokal final, which Dortmund lost on penalties against Bayern Munich, for example.

In that regard, the Euros helped him for next season. Having put in the extra work to get back into decent shape after the season ended for most of his team-mates, Sahin already looked quicker and more athletic in his two pre-season matches against Manchester United and Manchester City on the club's trip to China than he did at any stage of the last campaign.

Health permitting and fitness provided, Sahin can still be an important player for his boyhood club.

There was some speculation floating around earlier in the summer that the 27-year-old could become a part of the massive roster overhaul, but he rubbished those reports while still in France: "I am very happy at Dortmund," he told Mark Lomas of Sport360. "Yesterday it was Galatasaray, tomorrow it is Fiorentina—it’s normal of course in football to hear these things, but I am very happy at Dortmund."

One can assume that the club wouldn't have listened to offers anyway, for Sahin has value both on and off the field. The midfielder is one of the most experienced players on the team despite his age, having debuted as a 16-year-old in 2005.

Over the years, Sahin has proved to be a natural leader with integrative qualities the Black and Yellows can use after signing no fewer than eight new players in the summer transfer window to this point.

More important, of course, is his quality on the pitch.

Sahin is Dortmund's only deep-lying playmaker and arguably has the best passing range of all the players on the team. With Mats Hummels leaving for Bayern this summer, Sahin might be the only one left who's capable of regularly playing precise long-range passes to anywhere on the field.

WyScout

His best role, therefore, is as the most defensive midfielder of the team, dropping between the centre-backs in the build-up phase early and often. With the game in front of him, he can distribute the ball masterfully and dictate the rhythm of his team's attacks.

Be it with diagonal balls arching over defenders, a specialty of his, or with quicker short passes, the 27-year-old is able to set the pace thanks to his superb vision and technique. Defensively, meanwhile, he has become robust in duels, relying on his intelligence and timing rather than physicality to win challenges.

WyScout

However, Sahin lacks the ability to run with the ball at his feet and, more generally, the athleticism to play in a more advanced role, significantly limiting his options in midfield. He may only be two years removed from playing an entire season as a No. 8 next to a more defensive-minded midfielder, but, with his injuries taking their toll, those two years might as well be a lifetime.

He can only play at the base of midfield with a willing runner next to him. Sebastian Rode is the club's only true box-to-box midfielder and together, the two could form an old-school double pivot.

Sahin's problem, of course, is that he's not even the first-choice defensive midfielder after Julian Weigl's meteoric rise in his first year at the club last season. Despite it being his first season in the top flight, the 20-year-old quickly developed into an undroppable starter, playing more minutes than all but three of his team-mates, per Transfermarkt.co.uk.

The Germany international is set to be one of only a few guaranteed starters in the coming months, relegating Sahin to a back-up role. The two have played together on occasion, but seem too similar for it to be an option for an extended amount of time.

Both like to occupy the same spaces on the pitch and to be involved in the early stages of build-up play, which has caused a gap in front of Dortmund's first line in some of the games they played next to each other.

Michael Probst/Associated Press

Trying to put Weigl and Sahin into the lineup together would be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, especially considering the wealth of options at the disposal of head coach Thomas Tuchel—with Rode and Gonzalo Castro showing impressive form in pre-season so far and Mario Gotze and even Moritz Leitner a better fit for the spot next to Weigl.

No, the Turkey international will likely have to live with making starts on a rotational basis. He would still fill an important role for the club, with Dortmund having to play defender Matthias Ginter out of his natural position to fill Weigl's shoes when the 20-year-old went through a bit of a drought around the turn of the year last season.

Having a proven veteran on the bench for a pivotal position shows how strong a squad Dortmund have assembled over the last few years and, even though Sahin is still far too young to be genuinely happy with a part-time role, he would be happy if he managed to stay healthy for an entire season.

It starts and ends there for Sahin, a gifted midfielder who deserves some luck for a change.

Lars Pollmann also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.