It will be a very different Borussia Dortmund team to the one that faced Bayern in the Bundesliga two and a half weeks ago when the Black and Yellows take on the men from Munich in the DFB Cup semi-final on Wednesday evening (20:45 CET).

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Marco Reus and Sokratis

The personnel situation has improved significantly since then, even though there are still doubts surrounding the involvement of Sokratis, and two other key players that featured in that 4-1 defeat – Marc Bartra (starting XI) and Nuri Sahi (bench) – have both been ruled out by injuries picked up in the intervening fortnight.

"It's going to be a close call for Sokratis. Yesterday he only did running, but he'll try to join in team training today," said Thomas Tuchel of the Greek international, who has had a muscular problem since the match in Monaco last week, on Tuesday. "If all goes well, he will fly with us and undergo another test tomorrow." There will be a light training session in Munich on Wednesday morning. 

However, Marco Reus, Julian Weigl, Shinji Kagawa and Erik Durm will all be fit for the Cup clash with Bayern after missing the league meeting on 8 April, as will Sven Bender and Lukasz Piszczek, who were not 100 percent fit and started that match on the bench.

"Fortunately there have been no futher injuries aside from Nuri," commented Tuchel in reference to the match in Gladbach, before singling out Marco Reus for praise. "Whenever he plays he scores important goals for us. That goes to show what and who we have been missing throughout this season. Marco is a guy who can do special things. We need him to be on top form, otherwise we don't have a chance in Munich." (br)