FIFA 22 Borussia Dortmund Career Mode Guide: Starting Lineup and Who to sign

Borussia Dortmund are likely to be one of the main picks on FIFA 22 Career Mode, thanks to their young, talented squad letting you develop youth players into world-beaters.

Having Erling Haaland up top is also a massive draw, so make sure you keep hold of him.

There is a lot of work that can be done in squad depth, so this is not only a challenge for managing a squad to win titles but a building job too.

Team Rating

Borussia Dortmund have a four-and-a-half star rating on FIFA 22.

That is due to their team rating of: 84 ATK, 81 MID, and 81 DEF.

Starting Lineup and Formation

Dortmund line up as a 4-1-2-1-2 Narrow, and you will probably want to keep it like this until you bring in reinforcements.

That is because the team doesn't have proper pacey wingers that are first-team quality, so you will be relying on width from your full-backs.

You may be tempted to switch to a 4-3-2-1, to bring in a player on either side of Erling Haaland and to give more link-up play, although Marco Reus should be able to do that role as a CAM in the initial formation.

Haaland is obviously the star man of the team, being one of the best strikers on the game, offering a blend of pace, power and skill rarely found together.

Up top with Haaland is Donyell Malen, who offers you pace in behind teams to create space for Haaland to shine.

Behind the two strikers are a very capable midfield.

Marco Reus has adapted his game from a winger and is now a very threatening CAM, with top ball control, passing and shooting to make him dangerous in all attacking situations.

The three behind him offer another attacking option in the form of Julian Brandt, box-to-box all-rounder Jude Bellingham, and defensive anchor Axel Witsel.

You will probably want to switch out one of those three, most likely Brant, to bring in powerhouse midfielder Emre Can, who can offer nearly as much of an attacking threat as Brant, but with the added bonus of being very adept defensively (as well as all areas of the game really).

The back four contains a couple of ball-playing full-backs with Raphael Guerreiro and Thomas Meunier, although they both lack a bit of pace.

In the middle, you have the very solid Matts Hummels and the mobile Nathan Akanji, who make a great partnership.

Despite being slightly worse rated than his countryman Roman Burki, you should stick with Gregor Kobel in goal, with the 23-year-old set to become much higher rated, and having the GK Long Throw trait - which can set you up for quick counter-attacking moves.

A very strong starting line-up is let down by a bench lacking in impact players.

Brandt, Giovanni Reyna and Thorgan Hazard are all decent options to start games as rotation players, but they can't take advantage of a tiring opposition with their pace.

For that, you are looking at Nico Schulz and Marius Wolf, but both of them are more defensively minded - despite Wolf being a RM.

Rounding off the bench we have picked Marin Pongracic ahead of Dan-Axel Zagadou, although this is personal preference, and Reinier over Steffen Tigges, as he is better in more departments.

Tactics and Instructions

Much like in real life, Dortmund are set up to press high on the opposition, and they will do this rapidly after losing the ball with Press After Possession Loss.

They use Fast Build Up to strike fast in attack, playing like a counter-attacking team.

If you like high tempo, attacking play, then keeping these tactics will be up your street.

Both the full-backs are set to Join The Attack, which gives you much-needed width but may leave you short at the back, especially as they don't have the pace to sprint back.

This is slightly counteracted by the CDM being instructed to Stay Back While Attacking, but you may want to switch this to Drop Between Defenders, so you have a solid back three.

Development Plans

There are quite a few young, promising players in the team - Haaland, Malen, Bellingham, Reyna, Zagadou, Collins, Kobel - and you should focus on them when doing training sessions to get them to hit their potential.

Changing player positioning is also an option you have, and of the current team there is only one man we would focus on at the moment and that is Wolf.

He can play as RM, RB and RWB, and you will want to convert his main position to RB, as you don't play with wingers, that way he won't lose skill points when put in that position.

Transfer Market

Starting transfer budget: £54 million

Starting wage budget: £283,000 a week

Who should go

There is a bit of a dilemma here because you don't have the best squad depth, but also don't have masses of money to spend, so you will have to sell some players and hope to bring in others for cheap.

It's probably best to go for quite an aggressive selling strategy, getting rid of anyone who doesn't make your first team, and possibly won't in the future, and try to replace them with a couple of players who can be impactful on a game.

Your first team keeper is locked in as Kobel, so you can sell one or both of your back-ups and bring in an academy player in case of injury or suspension.

Burki is better to sell over Marwin Hitz, as he should bring you in three times as much money.

Bigger money selling options include Brandt (£31 million), Hazard (£26.5 million), and Mahmoud Dahoud (£20 million).

You could also get rid of your older first-team players such as Hummels (£38 million), Reus (£37 million), Guerreiro (£35 million), Witsel (£21 million) and Meunier (£8 million), to bring in younger talent - but make sure the deals are in place before getting rid of them.

Marcel Schmelzer won't bring in much in transfer fees, but you could look to use him as a player swap or just get rid of him to free up some wage budget.

Goktan Gurpuz, Felix Passlack, and Tigges won't reach above 76 OVR, so it is safe to sell them and get some more spending money.

Loans

Until you have more squad depth you won't want to send players out on loan.

If you do get the players in then feel free to send out and Soumaila Coulibaly (POT 81), Ansgar Knauff (POT 80) and Nnamdi Collins (POT 82) - although Collins is already quite pacey so may not feel out of place as a cup player.

Who to Sign

The starting XI is fairly strong, and the positions you want to replace players from are the full-backs, although it's not a disaster if you don't.

Guerreiro is one of the best-rated left-backs on the game, but as mentioned lacks in pace, so if you are looking to replace him with the budget it will almost certainly be someone worse rated, but hopefully with better potential.

Renan Lodi or Kieran Tierney could be options within your budget, and if you make a lot of money selling players by all means go for Alphonso Davies or Theo Hernandez.

Left-back options

There are many options to go for at right-back, and again it obviously depends on the budget you manage to get.

Our top choice within budget would probably be Ridle Baku, who is actually designated as a RM, but can easily play RB and even CM, giving you a good squad player to fill multiple positions.

You could also go for promising youngster Devyne Rensch, who has a potential of 85 OVR and is available for very little.

Right-back options

Most important is making multiple, cheaper signings, to expand your squad so you can progress over multiple competitions.

You may want to do this through loan signings, but we recommend getting players on permanent deals so you don't face the same issue next season.

You definitely need a backup striker or two, so much so that you may even want to sign an ageing player for cheap.

Cheap young strikers with decent potential include Giacomo Raspadori (OVR 74 - POT 88) and Karim Adeyemi (OVR 72 - POT 86), who could both be impactful in games.

Striker options

If you didn't sell your midfielders then that part of the pitch should be sufficiently covered, but it may be worth recruiting a promising CDM such as Sandro Tonali.

You have decent cover at CB with two capable replacements in Pongracic and Zagadou (Can and Witsel could also fill in), but finding another around their quality with high potential will be worthwhile.

It's worth noting, both Pongracic and Reinier are on loan at Dortmund, and will be returning to their parent clubs at the end of the season, so you will need to find replacements for them at some point, be it sooner or later.

Contracts

We already know that Pongracic and Reinier will leave at the end of the season unless you decide to make an offer to sign them permanently.

Then there are four players whose contracts run out at the end of the first season.

Schmelzer and Gurpuz aren't worth renewing, so you should try and sell them soon to make some money out of them.

Zagadou is worth holding onto with a potential of 84 OVR, so it is worth giving him an extension.

The final player is Witsel, who is also worth giving a contract renewal - unless you decide to sell him. At 32 he is at the end of his career, but keeping up the numbers of quality players in your squad is worth it, and he probably has another couple of seasons in him.

There are another four players you should look at giving a contract renewal to, and that is to take out their release clause - you need to hold on to your top talent.

Haaland is the most important player to keep at the club, already one of the best in the world and with the potential to reach 93 OVR. His release clause is set at £209,400,000, and although it is unlikely a club will meet that, it's not worth risking that one would.

Bellingham has a potential of 89 OVR, and a release clause that is only £59,800,00 - compared to his value of £31.5 million.

Malen doesn't have as high a potential, reaching a possible 85 OVR, so you may think about selling him in the future. His release clause is £49,700,000, and we're sure you'd be able to get more for him.

Finally, Can will be an important player in the squad, and although he doesn't have the same sort of potential as the other players you won't want to lose him, especially for £53,200,000.

Board Expectations

There are two critical expectations from the board, Brand Exposure and Domestic Success.

Brand Exposure is split into short term and long term targets.

The short term target asks you to score at least 1 goal in 7 consecutive away games - so make sure you play attacking football!

The long term target asks that within 3 seasons you sign 4 of the best players in the world. This might sound like an ask, but they define the best players in the world as OVR 82+, so once your finances are in order that should be simple.

Domestic Success means you are expected to win not just the Bundesliga, but also the DFB-Pokal cup.

Youth Development is a high priority, where you will need to sign at least 3 players younger than 20 with a potential greater than the average overall rating of players currently in the same position.

You have a hard season ahead, as Continental Success is also a high priority, where you will need to reach the semi-final of the Champions League.

Finally, there is the medium priority Financial target, which is another long term goal, where within 3 seasons you must increase your club worth by 30%. You can achieve this through player sales and competition prize money rewards.