From Marco Reus to Gio Reyna: the men who have played for Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach
From Bundesliga icon Marco Reus to USMNT star Gio Reyna, we take a look at the men who have played for both Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach ahead of Friday's Matchday 15 opener at Signal Iduna Park.
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"He is one of the greatest players BVB has ever produced," said Dortmund's sporting director Sebastian Kehl when Reus brought his 11-year stint at the club to an end in 2023. Kehl was right, but he was wrong too: Reus had been on BVB's books when he was a youngster, but was left heartbroken when his hometown club told him his frail physique meant they were letting him go. He was truly produced elsewhere.
After a spell at Rot-Weiss Ahlen, it was only with 36 goals and 18 assists in 97 matches for Mönchengladbach that Reus established himself as a bona fide Bundesliga player.
First under Michael Frontzeck and then Lucien Favre - in an exciting attacking trio with the experienced Mike Hanke and mercurial Venezuelan Juan Arango - Reus developed into one of Germany's top players at Borussia-Park between 2009 and 2012. There were 69 goal involvements in 109 competitive appearances for the Foals, including 18 goals and 12 assists in the 2011/12 campaign that saw Gladbach finish fourth. It was as the Bundesliga's Player of the Year that Reus made a triumphant and emotional return to his first love.
"In Marco Reus, we have the player we had been looking for for our attack. We're delighted he has come to us despite having other opportunities," said Dortmund's then-sporting director Michael Zorc. Reus would leave having taken Zorc's mantle as the club's all-time leading goalscorer, finishing on 170 with 131 assists in 429 competitive appearances. His last game for the club was the 2023/24 Champions League final as he picked up the second European runners-up medal of his career.
“It’s made me so proud,” said Reus, who lifted two DFB Cups and captained the side from 2018 until 2023, and now plays for MLS side LA Galaxy. “I’m so incredibly grateful to have got to play for this club for so many years."
“Marco is one of this club’s greatest players,” said CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke. "We also hope he’ll return to Dortmund when he retires, because there’s plenty of exciting roles for him here.” Reus has already done so before hanging up his boots, announcing in mid-December 2025 he is now a club ambassador.
Watch: The story of Marco Reus
When Reyna stepped off the bench to make his Dortmund first-team debut in February 2020, it was expected to be the start of an American dream in Germany for the USMNT player.
The son of former Bundesliga player and USMNT international, Claudio, and USWNT international Danielle Egan Reyna, Gio was one of the headline names alongside Jadon Sancho, Achraf Hakimi, Dan-Axel Zagadou and Erling Haaland in a Dortmund squad bristling with baby-faced talent.
He made 15 top-flight appearances - and his Champions League debut - the next season before four goals and seven assists in 32 Bundesliga matches in the 2020/21 campaign suggested he would add serious velocity to his upward trajectory. But he didn't.
"We want to make sure that he doesn't suffer another setback now, that he regains confidence in himself and his body, and that he has fun playing football again," said then coach Edin Terzić in summer 2022 after Reyna's previous season had been shredded by a hamstring injury that limited him to just six league starts.
"That's why we prefer to take a more cautious approach - because it's about him staying with us for a very, very long time."
That caution led to four Bundesliga starts in the 2022/23 season for Reyna and just another one the following season, which he finished on loan at English Premier League side Nottingham Forest.
A groin injury scuppered his chances of quickly establishing himself under Terzić's summer 2024 replacement, Nuri Şahin. When the former BVB midfielder lost his job in January 2025, Reyna was quickly consigned to the bench by Niko Kovač playing just six league games - and making only two starts - under the new man in charge. Departure, inevitably, beckoned.
Watch: The best of Gio Reyna at Dortmund
"Borussia are a fantastic, big club," said Reyna after signing a three-year deal at Gladbach where injury has meant him dipping in and out of coach Eugen Polanski's team this season.
"I’m delighted that the transfer has been able to be completed and am looking forward to getting to know everyone here, as well as tackling the upcoming games together.”
With a home FIFA World Cup on the horizon in 2026, Mönchengladbach and America will be hoping Reyna can find his best form.
Following four productive years in France with Montpellier and Rennes, Bensebaini joined Mönchengladbach on a four-year contract in 2018. Part of a healthy Francophone community in the Foals' stable along with the likes of Alassane Pléa and - from 2019 - Marcus Thuram, Bensebaini's muscular defending and athletic forward bursts soon made him a permanent first-team fixture under Marco Rose.
He featured heavily under Rose, contributing nine goals in 44 league games before the coach's departure in 2021. He was even more productive under Adi Hütter and then Daniel Farke, scoring 10 in 51 Bundesliga outings, which made him a more than enticing prospect as a free agent - aged 28 - when his contract expired in summer 2023.
"Ramy's in his prime," said BVB sporting director Kehl. "In our talks with him, we saw his unwavering desire to play for trophies with our team."
"I can't wait to be part of BVB, to play for titles and to experience the special atmosphere in Dortmund," said Bensebaini at the time. The Algeria international has played for titles since, notably reaching the 2023/24 Champions League final, but has yet to win any with the Yellow and Blacks.
With two Fritz Walter Gold Medals, Ginter was long tipped to be one of the standout performers of his generation in Germany. He has proven to be so and was part of the World Cup-winning squad of 2014.
But as with so many versatile players, the difficulty in pinning down exactly where he played best meant the early stages of his career at hometown club Freiburg and then at Dortmund, whom he joined in 2014, were filled with questions as he was shuttled between strategies. He played at right-back, centre-back and - thanks to his quality on the ball - defensive midfield at times, and he in fact featured in front of the back four as he lifted the DFB Cup with BVB in 2016/17.
"We told him he'd have the chance to develop in his preferred centre-back role here," Gladbach's then sporting director Max Eberl said after enticing Ginter to Mönchengladbach with promises of positional stability in summer 2017. "He's got stronger, toughened up. He throws himself into challenges with greater intensity than he used to. He's so consistent and reliable."
Ginter certainly proved to be that for his new club, missing just 16 league games across the next five seasons - in two of which he played all 34 Bundesliga matches - and even captaining the side during his ever-present 2020/21 campaign. He left to rejoin Freiburg in 2021 after 179 competitive appearances that have earned him a place among Gladbach's all-time greats.
"I'm very grateful to Borussia for the past seven years. I had an outstanding time there," Hofmann told the Bayer Leverkusen website after bringing the curtain down on a career-defining spell at Borussia-Park in 2023.
Like Ginter, it was with Gladbach that his career took off after a stay at Signal Iduna Park that promised much but ultimately delivered little. Signed by Dortmund aged just 19 in 2011 after impressing at Hoffenheim, Hofmann produced just five goals and 15 assists in 59 competitive appearances.
As he had been farmed out on loan to Mainz during the 2014/15 season, there was little fanfare for his winter 2016 move to the Bundesliga's other Borussia, but it would eventually prove the catalyst that kickstarted his career.
After the slow burn of two solid campaigns in which he failed to score a single Bundesliga goal, Hofmann blossomed as he tallied five strikes and as many assists in the 2018/19 season. His progress continued to the point where he netted 12 goals in the 2021/22 campaign.
"Jonas has become one of the faces of our team," said then sporting director Roland Virkus after Hofmann had signed a contract extension through to 2025 that summer. "He has developed impressively, as a first-team regular and leading player for us and also as one of the stand-out performers for the German national team."
Job security spurred Hofmann to his best season individually as he finished with a total of 22 goal involvements in a fruitful 2022/23, just outside the top three league-wide. That, however, convinced Leverkusen to swoop and make him a cornerstone of their historic unbeaten title-winning season.
Watch: All Jonas Hofmann's Bundesliga goals and assists in 2022/23
Other players who have played for both clubs
Mahmoud Dahoud: BMG 2014-16, BVB 2017-22
Thorgan Hazard: BMG 2014-18, BVB 2019-23
Heiko Herrlich: BMG 1993-94, BVB 1995-2002
Oliver Kirch: BMG 2003-06, BVB 2012-14
Bachirou Salou: BMG 1990-94, BVB 1998
Nico Schulz: BMG 2015-16, BVB 2019-21
Julian Weigl: BVB 2015-19, BMG 2022-25
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