Borussia Dortmund's Julian Brandt could be sidelined for Bayern Munich clash | OneFootball

Borussia Dortmund came out 3-0 winners over Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League on Wednesday night, with goals from Jamie Gittens, Ramy Bensebaini and Serhou Guirassy extending their tally of points to 12 in this year's iteration of the competition. Dortmund's win will go a long way towards the club securing a knockout round berth.

Unfortunately for Die Schwarzgelben, yesterday's victory did not come without cost. German international Julian Brandt came off the pitch at half-time during the game in the Croatian capital, which may signal the player has suffered some sort of injury.

Initially, the substitution could have been chalked up to two factors; a rather quiet first half from Brandt, and the fact that Dortmund has Bayern Munich waiting for them this weekend in the Bundesliga. Brandt has played a very high number of minutes for Dortmund this season (almost 1500 minutes), which will undoubtedly lead to fatigue and a drop-off in form.

Brandt's substitution at half-time could be due to a muscular injury, per Sebastian Kehl:

The reality of the situation only became apparent after the game when Brandt told Sky reporters that "it will be difficult" for him to play against Bayern this weekend. Sporting Director Sebastian Kehl also fueled speculation of injury by sharing his skepticism about Brandt's chances:

The unfortunate nature of this injury, especially ahead of such a massive fixture for Dortmund in the Bundesliga, cannot be overstated. While Brandt's form has seen ups and downs this season, he is still considered the creative fulcrum in this Dortmund side and will be a big miss for Saturday.

It will be interesting to see how Dortmund head coach Nuri Şahin reacts to this new development. The club is lucky that so many players have managed to return to training (at the very least) ahead of the game against Bayern as Şahin now has a few options to choose from that will help in putting together a solid lineup.

On the one hand, Dortmund could perhaps scrap the 10 from the lineup entirely and play a front two of Maximilian Beier and Serhou Guirassy. Şahin has dabbled with this in the past to mixed effect, but with Beier seemingly coming into his own at Dortmund over the last few games, giving this another shot may be worth the risk.

Şahin's other option is to replace Brandt in the lineup with Gio Reyna, giving the American international the ultimate opportunity to show his mettle for this current Dortmund side. The only concern here would be that he just returned from injury himself, and has only come on as a substitute in both the game against Dinamo Zagreb, as well as Die Schwarzgelben's 4-0 win over Freiburg this past weekend.

The upcoming match against Bayern could prove to be a major turning point for Dortmund's season. It is pivotal that Şahin gets whatever call he makes in terms of replacing Brandt right, especially if there is any hope for Dortmund to get within touching distance of an actual title race this season.