Borussia Dortmund's Champions League quarter-final exit despite an impressive 3-1 win over favourites Barcelona only highlighted the club's opposing fates in Europe and the Bundesliga this season.

While Dortmund failed to overturn a 4-0 first-leg deficit, they went 2-0 up, igniting hope among the home fans of an unlikely comeback.

Niko Kovac's team gave Barca's feared frontline of Lamine Yamal, Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha little space to operate, while Serhou Guirassy starred up front.

Even after Ramy Bensebaini turned into his own net, Dortmund kept going, with Guirassy completing his hat-trick.

Guirassy became the fourth Dortmund player to score a hat-trick in the Champions League, after Lewandowski (April 2013 vs Real Madrid), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (March 2017 vs Benfica) and Karim Adeyemi (October 2024 vs Celtic).

His tally of 13 goals in the competition is the most ever scored by a Dortmund player in a single campaign in the competition, surpassing Erling Haaland (10 in 2020-21 and Lewandowski (10 in 2012-13).

Yet Dortmund were eliminated despite scoring three goals in one leg of a Champions League knockout tie for the first time, having progressed from each of the previous nine occasions they scored at least three goals in either leg.

And last season's runners-up are not assured of a place in next term's Champions League.

Dortmund, who last week drew 2-2 against leaders Bayern Munich, are eighth in the Bundesliga on 42 points, six off fourth place – the last that leads to automatic Champions League qualification – with five games left to play.

"The question remains why we cannot play like that in the Bundesliga as well," said Dortmund defender Niklas Sule.

"Hopefully we show our fans here on Sunday a similar performance against Borussia Monchengladbach."

Direct rivals Gladbach are seventh on 44 points and any slip-up against them could be costly.

With only two wins in their last five league games, Dortmund have dropped valuable points in recent weeks, and Kovac knows his team has all but run out of chances.

The horror scenario for the club, both in sporting and financial terms, would be failure to qualify for any European competition.

"We had really good moments with the ball in transition," Kovac said. "We will keep showing that to the lads so they can also do it against Gladbach."