Borussia Dortmund Need Squad Rotation to Unlock Development of Promising Talents

As Borussia Dortmund turn the page from their return to the top of European football in a 6-0 thrashing of Legia Warsaw in the UEFA Champions League in midweek, head coach Thomas Tuchel has some important decisions to make.

The Black and Yellows are in the thick of a first busy part of their schedule, with seven matches in a 21-day span between international breaks that could define their Hinrunde, as the first half of the season is called in Germany.

Meetings with VfL Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, as well as with Real Madrid in the Champions League, will be important indicators of the club's intentions in the 2016/17 season.

Especially given the wholesale changes the club was forced to make over the summer, with no fewer than 13 first-team transfers alone, getting up to speed at this relatively early point in the campaign is a challenge in and of itself.

TF-Images/Getty Images

That much was evident in the Bundesliga loss away at RB Leipzig, with the promoted side capitalising on Dortmund's lack of cohesiveness to great effect. Putting intense pressure on a team that has yet to find a collective rhythm, the eastern Germans deserved the three points.

The Ruhr side looked far better in Poland on Wednesday, but their opponents can hardly serve as a measuring stick for Dortmund's true quality during the early goings of what fans hope will be a long and arduous season. If truth be told, Legia have no business being in the group stage of the Champions League.

Going by their squad, Dortmund's next Bundesliga opponents SV Darmstadt could be considered the Legia Warsaw of the German top flight; a team that, on paper, doesn't look like it should be in the competition.

With that and the brutal stretch of games in mind, Tuchel could well consider rotating his squad for the first time this season. The 43-year-old has so far only made minor changes from game to game, which is understandable seeing as he doesn't have a clear-cut first-choice XI at this stage.

However, with the Wolfsburg away match only three days after the tilt against underdogs Darmstadt, he may opt to make more changes.

Matthias Ginter could feature—partly due to his participation at the Olympics, he has so far only played 11 minutes—or Emre Mor, who's accumulated 49 minutes in three substitute appearances. Nuri Sahin and Mikel Merino haven't played at all—in fact, they've not even made a matchday squad so far.

It was apparent before the season started that Tuchel would have to make some unpleasant calls this year: With unprecedented depth come inevitable disappointments. The Black and Yellows have acquired so much talent that some players will be left out in the cold.

TF-Images/Getty Images

While that treatment must be particularly harsh on someone like Sahin, who overcame major injury woes that kept him out of action for most of the last two seasons only to find himself surplus to requirements to this point, it's the young players who stand to suffer the most.

They need to develop and, even with a highly rated coach such as Tuchel, the training pitch alone won't allow them to reach their potential, especially with the team going from match to match without much time to work on the training ground in the first place.

Players such as Merino and Mor—we can also include Christian Pulisic in this, after he made his first appearance of the season in Warsaw—need to hone their skills in a competitive environment.

Take Merino, for instance. Dortmund signed the 20-year-old early, inking him to a five-year contract on February 1, per the club's official website.

The midfielder finished the campaign at Segunda Division side CA Osasuna and progressed well, his explosion in front of goal being a major factor in the side from Pamplona making it into the promotion playoffs and finally winning promotion against Girona FC.

A physically gifted central midfielder, the tall Merino displayed a strong passing range while at Osasuna and generally looked like a promising midfielder to groom, a €3.75 million bargain, per Transfermarkt.

At Dortmund, however, Merino has almost exclusively played at the heart of defence in pre-season friendlies and struggled with the conversion. He lacked defensive instincts and often interpreted his role too offensively, exposing his team's defensive third to runners in transition attacks.

One can assume that his deployment at centre-back was partly down to Ginter's and Sven Bender's international duty at the Rio Olympics, but the jury on that is still out, because he's not seen the field in any of the five competitive matches to this point.

With the Spain youth international not included in the Champions League squad—oddly enough, the injured Erik Durm was preferred—opportunities to play the 20-year-old are scarce. If not against a side like Darmstadt, when is he going to get some minutes?

Osasuna are already lurking, with sporting director Petar Vasiljevic telling sport daily Marca (h/t Sportal.de, in German) that the club is interested in taking Merino on loan. If Dortmund can't offer their talent playing time, that seems like a logical step.

Things won't go that far with Mor, even though the Turkey international also has a mountain to climb to win regular minutes in Dortmund's crowded attacking depth chart. 

JANEK SKARZYNSKI/Getty Images

The 19-year-old has impressive technical abilities and may well be even more talented than Pulisic or fellow summer signing Ousmane Dembele, but he has little to no tactical understanding in terms of defensive work, while his decision-making is questionable at best.

Even with Marco Reus out of action for the entire season to this point—and for the foreseeable future—Mor has yet to make his full debut. Darmstadt would be a good opponent, seeing as the Hessians don't have the personnel to punish Dortmund for any gaps the teenager could fail to cover.

Having joined the Westfalenstadion club from FC Nordsjaelland after only 13 appearances, Mor generally lacks experience at the senior level, which shows in that he can easily be pushed off the ball at times. For a player like him, every minute counts as a valuable educational unit.

For head coach Tuchel, this all is a bit of a dilemma. 

The 43-year-old knows that the kids need to get their feet wet at some point, but his team seems too fragile at the moment to give them the opportunity.

Throwing talented yet inexperienced players in at the deep end could be too big a risk, but one that Dortmund will have to take if they are to develop their full potential.

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