As a child, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would watch his father Pierre star for the Gabon national team on television. He’d kick imaginary balls in the living room, cheer himself on as one of thousands of imaginary supporters from the sideline and pretend being an interviewer, interviewing himself. Twenty-odd years later, kid’s play has become reality, in a way that has superseded all dreams. Aubameyang Jr’s career has gone into hyperdrive over the last 18 months, taking him to elite level with the pace of a souped-up Cobra Mk III.

On Sunday, the 26-year-old Borussia Dortmund space-rocket left yet another team dazed and confused in a yellow blur, netting three times in the 5-1 win over Augsburg to register his second hat-trick in three days. (He’d also scored three in the 3-1 Europa League win at Qabala). His total for the season now stands at 20 goals, 13 of which have come in the league in 10 games. Only Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski (13 goals, too) stands in his way of the Torjägerkanone (leading goalscorer trophy) and the German Player of the Year award. “It’s an honour to be his coach,” said Thomas Tuchel after the Augsburg match. “This is not a phase he’s going through. He’s bursting with confidence and ability. He gives a lot to the team and gets a lot back. I’m happy he’s playing such fantastic stuff and scoring so many goals.” “He’s probably one the of the best strikers in Europe right now,” said his team-mate Ilkay Gündogan. It’s probably safe to delete the “probably” here.

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There was more than a smidgen of doubt when the former Milan youth player first turned up for training at Borussia Dortmund’s Brackel ground in a number of bright-coloured sports cars, wearing €4,000 Svarovski crystal-encrusted boots, diamond studs and the occasional superhero mask after his €13m move from St Etienne in 2013. Ostentatious wealth and extravagance are not the done thing in the Ruhr area, a region proud of its working class roots.

His debut campaign in the Bundesliga was decent but not spectacular, yielding 13 goals. Jürgen Klopp mostly played him as a winger either side of Robert Lewandowski. Aubameyang’s acceleration, rumoured to be faster than Usain Bolt’s over the first 30 metres, was a powerful weapon for counter-attacks but technically, he looked undercooked and his decision-making left a lot to be desired. You could see why bigger clubs had passed on him, leaving Dortmund to take a chance. After Lewandowski’s departure to Munich however, the more centrally deployed “Auba” was the one outstanding performer in the nearly catastrophic 2014-15 campaign, ending up with 16 strikes, a guaranteed starting berth in attack and some lost interest from Premier League clubs.

In typically shrewd fashion, BVB extended his contract until 2020, before a new season brought untold improvement, for him, as well as for the whole team. Some thought Aubameyang would suffer from Tuchel slowing down Dortmund’s game to make it less reliant on transition and verticality but fastidious practice of final third play has resulted in the Black and Yellows creating as many clear-cut goal-scoring opportunities as the best teams in Europe. “We work a lot with videos,” Aubameyang said. “Tuchel shows me how to move and what I could do better. He wants to take me to absolute top level”. He’s already there, really, but can go further still. Week by week, his finishing and link-up play with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Marco Reus is getting more precise. He’s a very different centre-forward, compared to the more physical Lewandowski - “he’s more about using pace whereas Lewy holds up the ball against two, three opponents,” said Gündogan. But their story is essentially the same. Dortmund glimpsed potential others couldn’t and then made them into the rarest, most valuable type of player: reliable goalscorers who defend from the front without the ball and work hard for the team. In addition, his hunger, positivity and zest on the pitch has proved infectious.

“His aim is to score goals, he totally defines himself as a goalscorer,” Tuchel said on Sunday. “But he’s also incredibly committed to the team and so happy when he enables others to score. Just the other day, when he made two goals for Miki [Mkhitaryan] and Marco [Reus] against Mainz, you could see how much it meant to him. My heart jumps for joy seeing that”.

A blossoming bromance with Reus, who is now officially over Mario Götze, and unconditional adulation from the fans – nobody cares that his latest Lamborghini is the colour of gold and occasionally parked in a ‘disabled’ space – have further ramped up the feel-good factor. “I have said in the past that I dream of playing in Spain but Dortmund has become my second home,” Aubameyang told L’Équipe recently. “I love this club, its fans and this city. I believe I’ll stay here for a little longer yet”. That declaration of loyalty will probably not stop the annual, well-rehearsed “BVB star in PL move” panto this winter (“He is coming! Is he coming? Where is he?” - “He’s behind you, still playing in Germany”) but Dortmund are used to that game by now. They’d rather invoke strong, covetous desire for their latest (partially) home-made superstar than last year’s pity.

Talking points

• 17th placed Hoffenheim firing coach Markus Gisdol and replacing him with Huub Stevens, 61, threw up all sorts of questions on Monday afternoon, including this one: “Who are Stuttgart gonna call, now that their tried and tested relegation ghostbuster won’t be available to save them for a third consecutive time at the end of the season?” Stevens’ survivalist powers are such that he could perhaps first steer Hoffe to safety and then move over to Swabia, where VfB are currently toiling in 16th, later. But that’s of course all very speculative at this point. What we can say with some certainty is that Hoffenheim manager Dietmar Hopp no longer had the courage to stick to the club’s footballing convictions. Philosophy, long-term planning and pro-active tactics are only buzzwords when things are going well, as it turns out, to be immediately discarded in the face of danger.

• Bayern strolled to a record 10th victory in a row, their 1,000th win in the Bundesliga, courtesy of a 4-0 win over Köln. Arjen Robben came back to score the opener but the all the lovely numbers appeared less relevant than by the big binary problem exercising Bavaria: Is Pep staying? Philipp Lahm told the Catalan that the team’s wish was for him to continue but he has remained publicly uncommitted. “Please stop asking me, I’m fed up” he told reporters in the pre-match conference for the Wolfsburg cup game on Tuesday. While Pep’s departure is moving ever closer, the man widely tipped to succeed him seems not all that eager. “FC Bayern will win the Bundesliga without taking their hands out of their pockets,” Carlo Ancelotti told Gazzetta dello Sport, “I have to admit that I don’t enjoy their games. There’s simply not enough true competition.” Maybe a return to Paris St. Germain might be a better option?

• Too many wins could well become a problem for André Schubert, too. Gladbach’s pretty sensational 3-1 over Schalke was his fifth consecutive league success since taking over from Lucien Favre, who had run up five defeats before resigning. Foals sporting director Max Eberl will soon be forced to offer the role on a permanent basis to the 44-year-old, even though neither the club nor Schubert have thought that a realistic possibility in the past. Schubert, however, dismissed all talk about his personal future, insisting that the severe injury of André Hahn “overshadowed everything”. Schalke midfielder Johannes Geis had hit Hahn right on the knee with a awful challenge. The Gladbach winger was lucky to escape with a fractured tibial plateau and meniscus damage but sincere apologies from Geis (“it was never my intention to hurt him, I’m very sorry for this terrible foul”) did not sway the German FA disciplinary panel. Geis has been banned for five games, cup games included.

Results: HSV 0-1 Hoffenheim, Leverkusen 4-3 Stuttgart, Mainz 1-3 Bremen, Darmstadt 0-1 Wolfsburg, Hannover 1-2 Frankfurt, Bayern 4-0 Köln, Ingolstadt 0-1 Hertha, Dortmund 5-1 Augsburg, Gladbach 3-1 Schalke.