Borussia Dortmund's 5 Greatest Germany Internationals of All Time

International breaks can be a tough time for fans of Borussia Dortmund.

Their relationship with the Germany national team has been tense for years, as they feel as though head coach Joachim Low doesn't always treat internationals from the Black and Yellows with enough respect. 

Low's handling of left-back Marcel Schmelzer—a stalwart during the club's renaissance—still plays a factor in this tension, for instance. The coach openly criticised the player in a press conference in October 2012, saying "we don't have a lot of options, thus we have to continue to work with him." 

"I don’t think that Jogi Low has a problem with Dortmund," then-BVB head coach Jurgen Klopp said in September 2013, per Stephan Uersfeld of ESPN FC. "But it is a fact: When mistakes get names, it is not unlikely that it is a Dortmund player."

The same is unlikely to happen after the current set of international games, for the Ruhr side have only sent two players to the Germany squad; Julian Weigl and Mario Gotze. Despite their status as the clear No. 2 in Germany behind giants Bayern Munich over the last decade, Dortmund's influence on the national side is not and has not been huge.

Of course, that's not a new phenomenon. For a club as successful and storied as Dortmund, they have had surprisingly few players who have made a real difference for Germany.

A grand total of three Dortmund players were in the squads for the first three FIFA World Cup-winning Germany sides in 1954, 1974 and 1990, for example. In 2014, four were called up, but only one (who, spoiler alert, will feature on the following pages) saw the field.

A few men bucked the trend, however. Here, Bleacher Report takes a look at them, ranking the five greatest Germany internationals in Dortmund history.

Please note that we will only consider international exploits of a player while he played club football at Dortmund, and not their overall international career.

For example, Gotze would deserve a place on the list for his extra-time goal against Argentina in 2014 that brought Germany the elusive fourth world championship, but he scored it while under contract at Bayern, thus making him ineligible for this list.

Hans Tilkowski is one of the forgotten men of German football. In the discussion about great German goalkeepers, names such as Sepp Maier, Oliver Kahn or Manuel Neuer rightly feature prominently, but the former BVB man's should also have a place.

The Dortmund-born player's 39 caps between 1957 and 1967 may not sound like much these days, but one has to consider the international calenders were not nearly as jam-packed as they are today. In fact, Tilkowski ended his Germany career as the country's most-capped 'keeper at the time, despite only playing until he was 32 years old.

It's unfair to one of Europe's best goalkeepers of his time that he went down in history as the recipient of arguably the most infamous goal in football history in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.

Tilkowski was one of the leaders of a young German side during the tournament, alongside the legendary Uwe Seeler. Conceding only two goals in the run to the final, the then-31-year-old was one major reason for Germany advancing to Wembley.

Geoff Hurst's shot that clanged off the crossbar—it's still hotly debated whether the ball crossed the line on the way back—in the 101st minute decided the game in favour of England, with Tilkowski among a number of players trying their best to persuade Swiss referee Gottfried Dienst to take the decision back.

Christoph Metzelder had the uncanny ability to always be at the top of his game for Germany despite missing countless club matches due to injury.

A versatile, modern defender, the tall centre-back became a Germany international after only one season of top-flight football, and he went on to play in 13 matches at the World Cups in 2002 and 2006 while at Dortmund.

The home World Cup in 2006 was not a given for Metzelder, who lost more than a year to an Achilles injury that kept him out between March 2003 and December 2004.

Although both tournaments ended in heartbreaking defeats, with Germany runners-up to Brazil in Japan and an extra-time semi-final loss against Italy in Dortmund—of all places—four years later, his individual performances were strong.

"Germany’s run to the final may not have been the most memorable, but it was built on several very good defensive performances, of which Metzelder was a big part in all of the team’s matches leading up to the final against Brazil," Cristian Nyari wrote on the 2002 World Cup for Bundesliga Fanatic.

"After the tournament, he was awarded the Bravo Award for Europe’s most outstanding young footballer, an honor previously held by players like Ronaldo, Marco van Basten and Paolo Maldini."

Four years later, Metzelder was a leader in Jurgen Klinsmann's exciting squad, forming an excellent partnership with the young Per Mertesacker in central defence.

Leaving Dortmund for Real Madrid one year later, Metzelder would appear in all six games of Germany's UEFA Euro 2008 campaign, confirming his status as a true tournament player.

Andreas Moller is the only player to have won both a World Cup and a European Championship with Germany while under contract at Dortmund.

The midfielder was the youngest player in Franz Beckenbauer's squad for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, where he played in two games as a substitute. He was far more integral in the Euro 1996 team, playing in five matches, even though he missed the final through suspension.

Always a divisive figure among fans, people either loved or hated Moller. His quality couldn't be denied, however. At the top of his game for club and country in the mid-90s, he was among the best attacking midfielders of his generation.

A technically gifted, creative player with a nose for goals, Moller scored a respectable 29 goals in 85 caps, 53 of which came while he played for Dortmund. His most important moment, however, didn't go down in the goal statistic.

In the Euro 1996 semi-final against England, the then-28-year-old kicked the final penalty to reduce the hosts to tears and send his nation into ecstasy. Wearing the captain's armband on the day, it was arguably the proudest moment of his career—as one can see in his celebration (pictured above), one of the iconic visuals in German football history.

Fitting for a career with ups and downs, however, was the fact that he had picked up a second booking of the tournament in regular time and was thus banned from contributing in the 2-1 win over Czech Republic at Wembley Stadium a few days later.

As mentioned earlier, Dortmund sent four players to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Whereas goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller, full-back Erik Durm and midfielder Kevin Grosskreutz didn't see the field, however, Mats Hummels was one of the key players for Low.

The centre-back was one of, if not the best, outfielders for Germany until the final, where he looked a bit shaky.

Scoring important goals against Portugal in the opener and the all-important winner in the quarter-final against France, Hummels also stabilised a defence that looked like a potential weak spot ahead of the tournament.

The then-25-year-old received unanimous acclaim for his performances, with FIFA.com singing his praises after the France match: 

Having long been compared to Franz Beckenbauer due to his on-pitch elegance, Hummels can justifiably claim to be one of the world’s elite defenders. A model athlete who is also renowned for his eye-catching beard, Hummels is equally influential away from the field where his measured words carry a great authority in the squad.

Seeing as he also played exceptionally well at Euro 2012 and this summer in France, where Germany didn't concede a single goal from open play with Hummels and Jerome Boateng on the field together, the former Dortmund captain deserves his high spot on our list.

Had he chosen to stay at the Westfalenstadion, the chances are he would have gone down as the greatest Germany international in the club's history.

Matthias Sammer is quite possibly the best player to play for Dortmund.

The Dresden-born man revolutionised a position, playing as libero but interpreting it like an attacking midfielder.

"An incisive passer and aggressive dribbler, Sammer was able to find gaps in any defence, preferring the diagonal ground pass as a weapon to find a striker up front," tactics blogger Constantin Eckner wrote for These Football Times.

The Euros in England were Sammer's tournament and, with it, 1996 was his year. He was Germany's most important and best player, scoring the opener against Russia and the winner in the quarter-finals against Croatia, and he was deservedly named UEFA's Player of the Tournament, per FourFourTwo.

Sammer's exploits in England also earned him the Ballon d'Or that year, per the Telegraph, making him the last German to win the most prestigious individual award in football.

A devastating knee injury robbed him off further tournaments for Germany and forced him into early retirement at the age of 30, with Sammer later becoming the youngest Bundesliga-winning head coach with Dortmund in 2002.

Even though his career was cut short, no other BVB player had such a huge influence on a Germany side. Frankly, there's no way they would have won Euro 96 without Sammer.

Lars Pollmann also writes for The Yellow Wall. You can follow him on Twitter.