Bundesliga blog: Could BVB’s Japanese star be the next player on Premier League clubs' radar?

Published 13:05 30/01/12

Welcome to our German football blog, courtesy of Ross Dunbar of brand new German football site bundesligafootball.co.uk .

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Borussia Dortmund are making a strong fight in their defence of the Bundesliga championship. For the first time in nine years, BVB got their hands on the famous shield last season after enduring a rollercoaster decade which saw the club almost go out of business back in 2006.

But taking into account the financial difficulties of the past five years, Jurgen Klopp has done a quite fantastic job at Signal Iduna Park having being brought in to the club to provide a fresh, young attacking side to compete at the top of the table.

And as things stand, Dortmund are well in the hunt for a second championship in a row with Klopp’s men tied on 40 points alongside FC Bayern and great rivals Schalke 04.

Rewind about 18 months and the 44-year-old head coach made one of his biggest and best acquisitions by signing Japanese attacking midfielder Shinji Kagawa from Cerezo Osaka for £300,000.

The 22-year-old started a wave of imports from the J-League with the likes of Schalke, Bayern, Stuttgart and Wolfsburg all now with Japanese internationals in their squad.

Kagawa settled in right away under Klopp and scored eight goals in 17 matches in the first half of the last campaign as Borussia Dortmund steam-rolled their way to the championship.

But whilst on Asian Cup duty with his national team last January, the midfielder suffered a broken metatarsal and was ruled out for the rest of the campaign.

With Robert Lewandowski taking Kagawa’s role for the second half of the season, Dortmund didn’t have the same flair and dynamism from midfield in the Japanese international’s absence.

He finally returned to first-team action in pre-season and was quickly back in the starting eleven as Dortmund looked to defend their title.

It took Kagawa a while to settle back in to their rhythm and to get back to a good level of match sharpness, but towards the end of the hinrunde (first half of the season), the attacking midfielder was in terrific form to take his tally to six goals for the season in 16 starts overall.

Viewers of the Bundesliga were treated to a Shinji Kagawa masterclass last weekend as Borussia Dortmund thrashed Hamburg 5-1 at the Volkspark. The midfielder was in sparkling form with terrific link-up play and movement off Robert Lewandowski, who scored two goals against HSV.

With Mario Gotze injured until late February, Dortmund will need to rely on Kagawa to deliver the same level of form as he did last season, as well as, the likes of Jakub Blaszczykowski maintaining the level of performances shown against Hamburg last weekend.

If 22-year-old Kagawa continues to perform well for Dortmund and secures his second German championship, there may be phone calls for sporting director Michael Zorc from across the English Channel.

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Read more from Ross at the new site bundesligafootball.co.uk or follow @rossdunbar93 on Twitter

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