Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang vs. Dejan Lovren Is Key Dortmund vs. Liverpool Battle

When Borussia Dortmund face Liverpool in the first leg of the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals on Thursday evening, all eyes will be on Jurgen Klopp in his first return to Signal Iduna Park, naturally.

The narratives before the game centre on the 48-year-old who was so successful with the Black and Yellows and has taken hearts by storm since taking over the Reds last October.

The special circumstances of the game aren't lost on Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke, a close friend of Klopp's, who told Bild (h/t the Guardian): "Most of all I fear that Klopp is trying to lull us into a false sense of security and that he will try to get our fans on his side to ensure that the match feels like a friendly."

As much as the media would like to turn this match into a battle of the "new" against the "old" Dortmund, however, it remains a players' game.

Compared side by side, Thursday's hosts hold the edge defensively, while the two attacks are closer to the same level, fitness provided.

Much of the focus will be on whether Liverpool can score a crucial away goal, but if they are to avoid the same fate as Tottenham Hotspur, the Reds' defence will need to be up for the test.

Spurs, of course, didn't play their first-choice XI against Dortmund, choosing instead to focus on the Premier League. Still, they will have hoped to come back from Germany with a fighting chance in the home leg but were blown out of the water, losing 3-0 at the Westfalenstadion. That round-of-32 tie was over after 90 minutes.

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Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang opened the scoring on March 10, his strong header from a Marcel Schmelzer cross giving Hugo Lloris no chance. The Gabonese also scored both of his team's goals in the 2-1 away win at White Hart Lane, so Liverpool have been warned.

Although Aubameyang hasn't quite reached the heights of his spectacular first half of the season, he's still established himself in the pantheon of great strikers. StatsBomb.com's Ted Knutson highlighted "his transformation from a very good pace goalscorer to one of the best center forwards in the game" in March, and the numbers back that claim up.

Finding the net against Werder Bremen at the weekend with a delightful lob over Felix Wiedwald, Aubameyang has now scored 36 goals across competitions, including 10 in 12 games in Dortmund's European campaign.

Tasked with stopping the Gabonese will be the likely centre-back partnership of Dejan Lovren and Mamadou Sakho.

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Months ago, one would have scoffed at the idea of Lovren defending against a striker as prolific as Aubameyang, but the Croatian has turned things around in 2016. He's arguably one of the big winners of Klopp's takeover on Merseyside, as Omar Hamouda pointed out for Squawka.com.

Finally looking like the player Liverpool fans thought they'd get when the club signed him from Southampton for £20 million in 2014, per ESPN FC's John Brewin, Lovren has been at the forefront of the Reds' improved defensive record under Klopp.

A regular starter since November, Liverpool have conceded nine goals in the 10 league matches in which he played the full 90 minutes, compared to 10 goals they've conceded in the five league matches he's missed with injuries during that stretch.

An assured passer and unconquerable in the air, the 26-year-old has looked far more convincing than Sakho in recent weeks, including the 1-1 draw with Spurs at the weekend, as Brewin noted:

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"Dejan made a brilliant game," Klopp said on Saturday, suggesting that [Harry] Kane's escape to equalise had occurred because right-back Nathaniel Clyne and Liverpool's midfielders had allowed a one-on-one situation. Two weeks before, the removal of Lovren at half-time was explained by the manager as owing to the defender being on a yellow card, before a pairing of a rusty [Martin] Skrtel and Sakho was torn asunder as a 2-0 lead slumped into a 3-2 loss at Southampton.

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Dortmund offer an even bigger challenge than Spurs, especially at home, and Aubameyang is arguably an even more difficult player to defend than Kane, but Liverpool fans will hope Lovren can echo his performance when he lines up at the Westfalenstadion.

Lars Pollmann is a Featured Columnist writing on Borussia Dortmund. He also writes for YellowWallPod.com. You can follow him on Twitter.