Jakub Blaszczykowski Signs Extension With Borussia Dortmund

'Kuba' Jakub Blaszczykowski has agreed to a contract extension with Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund that will keep him there through 2016. His contract was set to expire at the end of next season.

Kuba, 26, joined BVB in the summer of 2007. He is currently the third longest serving player at the the club after Sebastian Kehl and Roman Weidenfeller. He will cross the 150 appearance mark with BVB in the first half of the upcoming season. The expectation of winning their third straight Bundesliga crown will weigh heavily on the shoulders of the team, and their strongest competition will once again come from Bayern Munich. The young players on the team will be looking toward Kuba for leadership on and off the pitch.

"Kuba is wearing the BVB emblem on his heart and he has proved, especially last season, why he is so important to us," sporting director Michael Zorc said.

The Poland international was instrumental in Dortmund's success last season. When the club lost Mario Götze for the majority of the season due to an injury, they relied on Kuba to take his place, and he didn't let them down. In the DFB-Pokal Final against Bayern Munich, Kuba provided two assists on the way to a 5-2 victory.

"I have played the way I intend to play and that is how things should continue," Kuba said. "We also want to achieve more in the Champions League because we have the quality to do so."

With Kuba's extension, BVB have almost completed signing their entire team to contract extensions with Robert Lewandowski and Neven Subotic the only holdouts to this point. They have lost Shinji Kagawa to England and Lucas Barrios to China, but BVB have brought in Marco Reus to help alleviate some of that loss.