No place like home for Hummels and Götze

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The respective transfers of Mats Hummels and Mario Götze between Borussia Dortmund and FC Bayern München were among the biggest headlines of the summer, not least because both players returned to the clubs where they started their professional careers.

Origins

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Hummels: Born in 1988 in Bergisch-Gladbach, near Cologne in central western Germany, Hummels joined the Bayern youth academy as a child, where his father worked as a coach. However, the defender's talent did the rest and he made good progress, eventually signing professional terms in December 2006, before making his Bundesliga debut against 1. FSV Mainz 05 in May 2007. Further first team opportunities were limited, though, so he moved to Dortmund in January 2008.

Götze: Once Götze had his foot in the door of the Dortmund senior team there was no going back. A two-footed attacking midfielder able to dribble and play the killer pass, he sealed a place in the first team and made his senior Germany debut in November 2010 at the age of 18. Götze shared those two Bundesliga titles with Hummels, but after contributing 22 goals and 32 assists for BVB in 83 Bundesliga matches he joined Bayern in summer 2013. He won three successive Bundesliga crowns in Munich, and made global headlines by netting the winning goal in the 2014 World Cup final. However, with playing time increasingly hard to come by at the Allianz Arena, Götze returned to his boyhood club in July 2016.

Watch: Götze's best five Bayern goals:

What now?

Hummels: Having regularly played alongside Jerome Boateng for Germany, it appears likely that the duo will be Carlo Ancelotti's preferred centre-back pairing, especially as Holger Badstuber is still recovering from injury and Medhi Benatia has joined Juventus on loan. Moreover, Hummels is eager for more silverware, saying that he has "the chance to win everything every year here," at his official unveiling recently.

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