4 Borussia Dortmund Players of the Last 10 Years Who Disappointed the Fans

When it comes to football fans around the world, few are quite as passionate or in love with their clubs as those who follow Borussia Dortmund.

Not many clubs are famous for what they possess off the pitch rather than what they've accomplished on it, but when it comes to this Bundesliga side, the army of black-and-yellow fans who fill the Westfalenstadion's yellow wall at every home game are known the world over. 

Yet one downside to such a fanatical support is the fact that, from time to time, the fans off the pitch lash out at a player on it. 

Here are four players whom Dortmund fans wouldn't welcome back to the club in any great hurry.

Kevin Kampl

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

We kick off today's list with a somewhat minor figure from Dortmund's darker past. In fact, it's a player who only just left the club and would instead receive a dose of sympathy rather than anything aggressive from most fans. 

Kevin Kampl arrived in January of this year from Red Bull Salzburg in a move that many predicted would ultimately end in tears. On the outside, initially, it seemed like a bright signing, but once fans began to dig into the deal, it made next to no sense. 

Dortmund already had an obscene amount of wide forwards and certainly didn't need another player who wasn't accustomed to the Bundesliga as they tried to drag themselves out of the bottom half of the table. Once Jurgen Klopp left the club, it seemed as though it was only a matter of time before Kampl would follow him out the door. 

One of Thomas Tuchel's first tasks when he arrived at the club was to clear out all the dead weight, and along with Kevin Grosskreutz, Milos Jojic, Jakub Blaszczykowski and numerous others, Kampl was asked to move on to another club. 

Ciro Immobile

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

Ciro Immobile could have been an excellent player for Dortmund. Although it seems odd to suggest a player still on the books at the club may never be, there's a very good chance that the Italian forward will never play for Tuchel's side. 

Currently on loan at Sevilla, Immobile left the Bundesliga side having struggled to fit into the starting lineup under Jurgen Klopp last season. Yet rather than make the move to Spain and get on with his career, the player decided to leave with a parting shot at the club. 

Immobile complained to Spanish paper El Pais (h/t Goal) about the lack of support he had received since arriving from Italy: 

"

[We received] no help, neither me nor my family. We must share the blame. I did not know German and I expected more help from my team-mates. But hey, you cannot expect to change the culture of a country. You feel bad if you're not used to a certain lifestyle. And German is an impossible language to learn.

"

Maybe the club didn't offer enough support, but for most fans, this was a player who never seemed intent on succeeding in Germany from day one. And there's little love lost between the striker and the Westfalenstadion faithful. 

Giovanni Federico

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

For many Dortmund fans, there will always be a huge "what if" sign over the name of Giovanni Federico. 

The Italian striker signed for the Bundesliga side from 2.Bundesliga club Karlsruher SC in the summer of 2007, having scored 19 goals in 34 league games the season before. The 27-year-old, signed on a Bosman, looked like he was going to be a great bargain and fantastic goalscorer for the club. 

Yet that season Dortmund finished 13th in the Bundesliga table, with the Italian striker picking up just four league goals in 30 games. The following summer, out went Thomas Doll as head coach, and in came a fresh-faced, scruffy looking manager from Mainz by the name of Jurgen Klopp. 

The new manager immediately took to Nelson Valdez as his key striker, and Federico never got another shot in the Dortmund first team before returning to Karlsruher.

Mario Gotze

Kerstin Joensson/Associated Press

Last but certainly not least, we have one of Dortmund's own, who traded in the love of the famous yellow wall for a wage rise and a better chance at winning silverware. 

We are of course talking about Mario Gotze. Few players in world football come to mind when the word "betrayal" comes to mind—Luis Figo, Ashley Cole, maybe even Carlos Tevez—but in Germany, nobody quite comes close to Gotze, who made a sudden move from Dortmund to Bayern Munich in the summer of 2013. 

The player would argue that he's won two Bundesliga titles and a DFB-Pokal Cup since then, but that won't make up for what he did to his boyhood club. Despite his obvious talents for club and country, Gotze will never be welcomed back to the Westfalenstadion. 

Editor's note: After further consideration, the headline was changed after initially stating that these players never won fans over due to the inclusion of Mario Gotze. We regret the error.