Two years can be a long time, especially in football. Careers have been made—and wasted—in shorter spans of time.
For Matthias Ginter, his first two years at Borussia Dortmund may well have felt like a lifetime. Only now, in his third season at the Westfalenstadion, is he getting the chance to prove his worth at his preferred position for an extended run of matches.
The 22-year-old joined the Ruhr side in 2014 as one of the most promising centre-backs in all of European football. Coming off a season in which he played the full 90 minutes 33 out of 34 times for boyhood club SC Freiburg en route to a safe 14th-place finish, Ginter even worked his way into Joachim Low's 2014 FIFA World Cup-winning squad.