Jakub Błaszczykowski Courtesy of facebook.com/kubablaszczykowski

A trio of Poles played a significant role in Borussia’s 3-0 home win over Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League round of 16 last week. The win, in front of more than 65,000 fans at the Westfalenstadion, earned Dortmund a 5-2 aggregate victory, and made them one of the favorites to lift the Champions League trophy at Wembley on May 25.

Striker Robert Lewan-dowski led the line well and was a constant threat all night. He almost opened the scoring early in the first half, latching onto a Mario Goetze through ball only for Shakhtar’s goalkeeper Andriy Pyatov to advance quickly to block the Pole’s shot.

Dortmund then put themselves on route to victory when they scored the game’s first goal at the 31-minute mark, when Brazilian defender Felipe Santana powered home a header straight from a corner. Then, just six minutes later, Mr Lewandowski found space on the right and fired in a low cross to allow Goetze to find the net from close range.

Polish defender Łukasz Piszczek was involved in another chance but saw his run into the box blocked as Dortmund began to exert consistent pressure on the away side.

But it wasn’t all one-way traffic as both Douglas Costa and Fernandinho went close for the Ukrainian side. However, the result was put beyond doubt when Jakub Błaszczykowski was first to react after Ilkay Gundogan’s long-range shot was parried by Mr Pyatov, enabling the Polish captain to calmly side-foot the ball home.

Dortmund’s Champions League quarterfinal first-leg match will take place on April 2 or 3.

David Ingham