News broke today of Greece international defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos’s injury which he obtained in a tackle on André Hahn late on in Sunday’s much-needed victory at home to high-flying Gladbach. The club released a statement that read, “The Greek is expected to be out only 2 weeks and should be fit again for the Champions League game on Nov 26 in London (against Arsenal FC)”.
It means he will his national side’s qualifier against the Faroe Islands, a must-win after 2 defeats in their opening 3 games in a group where they were one of the pre-qualification favourites. He will also miss the friendly against Serbia 4 days later as well as the Bundesliga match against SC Paderborn, a game he was already unavailable for after picking up 5 yellow cards.
This yet another injury in the Dortmund injury saga that means either the club from the Ruhr region are extremely unlucky or perhaps player’s workloads need to be looked at. Papastathopoulos himself has had injuries before whilst at Dortmund, and his other defensive teammates have had injuries as well. Mats Hummels missed significant chunk at the start of this season along with who Neven Subotic missed most of last season after tearing his posterior cruciate ligament.
It’s not just at the heart of the defence where injuries have occurred. Both Łukasz Piszczek and Marcel Schmelzer, right back and left back respectively, have missed parts of this season. In midfield everyone knows about Ilkay Gündogan history with injuries, suffering a career-threatening back injury that kept him out for over a year, whilst Nuri Şahin and last season’s surprise package Oliver Kirch have also been absent with injuries this season. Even Dortmund’s star man Marco Reus couldn’t escape, missing the World Cup after sustaining an injury late last season before picking up another injury in this campaign.