Germany's Champions League Dominance Is Peak of a Long Climb Back BERLIN - The German soccer club Borussia Dortmund was at the edge of bankruptcy in 2003, unable to pay its players" salaries. Rescue came from an unlikely source when rival Bayern Munich lent the club $2.6 million. A decade later, the teams are each a game from a potential showdown in the final of the Champions League. An all-German final, which would be the first in tournament history, would crown a return to form for German soccer that has been years in the making. After Borussia Dortmund trounced Real Madrid, 4-1, on Wednesday night, players in their yellow-and-black uniforms sat on the field at Westfalenstadion, listening to their fans serenade them. "That was a clear signal for all of Europe," the announcer for German public television said, summing up the significance of the victory. On consecutive days, German teams knocked off Spanish powerhouses in convincing fashion in the first leg of the semifinals. On Tuesday, Bayern Munich crushed Barcelona, 4-0, considered the best team in the sport in recent years, in a game that was as lopsided as the score. Germany's Bundesliga does not have nearly the global broadcast reach of England's Premier League. Its top clubs are known to fans from their Champions League matches, and its best players from international competitions like the World Cup and the European Championship. But Bundesliga teams have nothing approaching the fame of their Spanish counterparts. The dominant form and agile playmaking of the German teams came as a surprise to many viewers last week. But for those paying attention to the developments in Europe's largest economy, it was anything but a surprise. "It's not just a two-day wonder," said John Carlin, who writes a soccer column for the Spanish daily El País and wrote a book about Real Madrid. There's been a sense in European football all this season that the Germans have a momentum and this was coming. The Germans seem to be poised to take it to a higher level still. Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich must travel to Spain this week for rematches, giving Real Madrid and Barcelona the chance to turn the tables in the two total-goals series (the team with the most away goals wins if there is a tie in total goals). "There can't be any title guarantees," Wolfgang Niersbach, the president of the national soccer association, the Deutscher Fussball-Bund, said in an e-mail. At this level, the smallest things decide, including the necessary luck. But his enthusiasm for the play of the German teams was undiminished by that uncertainty. "F.C. Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund have left a magnificent calling card for German soccer in the Champions League season so far," Niersbach said. He credited the close cooperation between the association and the league to develop young players. "Maybe that's the secret," he said. Germany has invested nearly $1 billion into youth programs in the last decade, through a two-tiered system with training academies run by teams and separate centers overseen by the national association. The system was developed after a terrible showing by the national team in the European Championship in 2000, when Germany won no games and scored only one goal. Now the Germans are among the best in the world at spotting and cultivating talent. Of the 44 players from around the world that made up the starting squads of the four Champions League semifinalists, 14 were members of the German national team, including two key players wearing Real Madrid's white uniforms: Sami Khedira and Mesut Özil. "German soccer has almost an oversupply of young, talented players," said Daniel Saurenz, an economics and sports analyst at Feingold Research. The strength of the league goes beyond talent development and into the solid business model in Germany. "The German Bundesliga is the healthiest in Europe by a wide margin," Saurenz said. Club finances are broadly balanced and not overly dependent on any one sponsor. Borussia Dortmund was lured from that grounded approach in the wake of the team's first and only Champions League title, in 1997. The team poured money into contracts only to find that the expensive players underperformed. That and complications in the expansion of its stadium brought the club into the difficult financial straits that required a bailout from the competition. Getting back on track meant the team had to wean itself off the splashy signings and focus instead on developing talent. It paid back the borrowed millions by 2005 - with interest. Borussia Dortmund found renewed on-field success under Coach Jürgen Klopp with a host of young stars, including the German national team players Marco Reus and Mario Götze. Borussia Dortmund has a strong Polish contingent with defender Lukasz Piszczek, midfielder Jakub Blaszczykowski and the star striker Robert Lewandowski, who scored all four of the team's goals against Real Madrid. The team won back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012, also beating their one-time benefactors Bayern Munich in the domestic cup final. This season, Bayern roared back with a record-setting championship season capped with the signing of Götze for next season. Gerhard Delling, a soccer commentator and journalist in Germany, credited the fierce competition from Borussia Dortmund with forcing Bayern Munich executives to keep stocking its talent pool - and with making the players mentally tougher. "Having Dortmund rub their noses in it twice was the worst thing that had happened to Bayern in years," Delling said. They had to work harder to get stronger. The ultimate testament to the cooperation and the competition between the clubs would be a matchup in the Champions League final on May 25 at Wembley Stadium in London. After Wednesday's game, Mats Hummels, a defender for Borussia Dortmund who came up through Bayern Munich's youth system, told German television with a smile that "a German final would definitely have a certain allure." Chris Cottrell contributed reporting.