Guirassy’s rise from journeyman to Champions League marksman

Serhou Guirassy – a man with a modest career until two years ago – finds himself near the top of the Champions League goalscoring charts.

The 28-year-old Borussia Dortmund striker has relegations from the German and French top tiers on his CV – and had never hit a 15-goal season until last season.

His six transfers in a journeyman, often injury-hit, career have cost a combined £45m.

But now the Guinea international is the Champions League’s joint-second top scorer, with 10 goals, going into the last-16 second leg against Lille – a club who previously moved him on after just six months.

Guirassy, then a France Under-19 international, made his first-team breakthrough at Laval and scored six goals in 29 games in the 2014-15 Ligue 2 campaign.

QPR and Leeds were both linked to him before he moved to Lille that summer for a reported 1m euros (now £840, 000).

Herve Renard was the manager who brought him to Lille – but was sacked in November and, after only three Ligue 1 starts, Guirassy was sent on loan to second tier Auxerre in January.

Arsenal, still managed by Arsene Wenger then, were reportedly scouting him during that loan spell to Auxerre.

But instead he moved to Cologne – in a somewhat protracted deal.

The German side spotted something in his medical and the clubs had a minor war of words before Cologne eventually negotiated a lower fee – understood to be about 4m euros (now £3.4m).

Injuries would blight his time there and he managed just 21 Bundesliga appearances, and four goals, in his first two seasons before their relegation.

According to Transfermarkt he has missed 75 games through injury or illness in his career, with 41 of them coming during his time at Cologne.

Guirassy netted three Ligue 1 goals in the second half of 2018-19 and Amiens paid about 5m euros (about £4.2m now) to sign him permanently that summer.

West Ham, Aston Villa, Leicester, Bournemouth, Brighton and Tottenham were all reportedly interested in signing him midway through the 2019-20 season – but he ended up staying at Amiens as they were relegated to Ligue 2.

Amiens sports director John Williams says Guirassy turned down a move to Chelsea in the summer of 2020 because he wanted first-team guarantees – so instead he moved to French top-flight Rennes for about 15m euros (now £12.6m).

Everton were the latest British team to be linked to him when he was leaving Rennes in 2022 – and were supposedly close to signing him at one stage.

But instead he went back to the Bundesliga, joining Stuttgart in a loan deal.

He scored 14 goals in all competitions, including one in the promotion-relegation play-off win over Hamburg, as he avoided a third relegation in his career.

Stuttgart made the signing permanent for a fee of about 9m euros (now £7.6m).

The 2023-24 season was the year Guirassy really found his shooting boots.

In all competitions last season he netted 30 goals in 30 games for Stuttgart – in an injury-hit campaign.

He netted 28 Bundesliga goals in as many games – one every 79 minutes – and only missed out on the Golden Boot to Harry Kane’s 36.

Stuttgart finished second in the table behind Bayer Leverkusen.

Guirassy was unfortunate because without Kane, he would have won not only the German top-scorer award but also the European Golden Shoe – awarded to the leading scorer across Europe’s top leagues.

Despite missing several games through injury, he played 2, 211 minutes in the league (equivalent to 24.5 full games) – the most in his career.

Manchester United and Newcastle United were among the English teams to be linked to him last summer.

But he instead moved to Borussia Dortmund, who triggered a release clause to sign him for 17.5m euros (£14.7m).

Another injury delayed his debut but he has been prolific since getting into the team – with 24 goals in 34 games.

Ten of those have come in the Champions League, in his debut season in Europe’s top competition, where he has outscored everyone apart from Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane (10) and Barcelona’s Raphina (11).

“I understand that my form might surprise some, but I’m not surprised”, he said recently.

“I have had two crazy seasons, but I’ve not changed anything. I’m not working more, I’m not sleeping more, I’m not doing more video analysis.

” It’s just a question of confidence. And I have understood that at the highest level, talent isn’t enough.

“You have to push through the pain barrier in challenges, in the effort you put in, in making high-intensity runs again and again, more quickly and more frequently than your opponents.