It was as if he’d never been away. He took Achraf Hakimi’s pass in his stride and, steering the ball with the outside of his foot out of the line travelled by onrushing goalkeeper Andreas Luthe, appeared to create a tricky angle. With the next sweep of his right he made light of it, swishing the ball clinically into the far corner. In common with his winner in the World Cup final four years ago, it was a tough chance made to look simple by impeccable, ice-cold technique.

There have been moments – many moments, of late – when Rio must have felt like a lifetime ago for Mario Götze. None of those mattered on Saturday at Signal Iduna Park where, having been a surprise addition to Borussia Dortmund’s bench for the game against Augsburg, he came on in the 77th minute for his first action of the season, with his team in need of some magic.

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Götze, against the odds, provided, and then some. When he replaced Julian Weigl, BVB trailed 2-1. By a breathless ending, they had triumphed 4-3, retaining their spot as Bundesliga leaders with a result that would only get sweeter as the evening drew in, with Bayern Munich tumbling to another surprise defeat in the late game against Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Some minutes after full-time Götze and his younger brother Felix, also a second-half substitute but for the visitors, sat on one of the team benches chatting through the mania they’d been involved in. Mario grinned as he used his hand to mimic the dip of Paco Alcácer’s free-kick which won the game, six minutes into stoppage time, while Felix gently grimaced.

That the brothers chose the substitutes’ hutch as their venue for a chinwag seemed fitting. It was from there that the game turned for Dortmund, as has so often been the case recently, with all four of their goals the work of replacements; Götze’s strike was sandwiched by Alcácer’s hat-trick, the Spaniard’s spectacular winner being the final twist after Michael Gregoritsch’s late headed equaliser had seemingly scuppered the script.

“There is much to correct,” coach Lucien Favre told Sky as the frenzy began to subside – not the first time he has uttered those words this season and probably not the last, either (it’s worth noting that even with Dortmund on top and five points ahead of Bayern, goalkeeper Roman Bürki has been one of their better players this season). At times like this, though, complaints about flaky defending, wandering from a gameplan and tougher tests to come all feel like they’re missing the point. This was emotional, raw, visceral, thrilling Dortmund, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the heyday of Jürgen Klopp.

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Götze, one of Dortmund’s key pieces during Klopp’s glorious apex here, was central to that emotion, and not just because he recalls those halcyon days of successive Bundesliga titles and a run to the Champions League final. The 26-year-old is one of Westfalen’s own, which is why it hurt so much when he elected to join Bayern in 2013. His return has been hampered with difficulties.

He was inadvertently at the heart of the colossal fall-out between Thomas Tuchel and Sven Mislintat – when Götze was brought back, Tuchel was clear he’d have preferred Atlético Madrid’s Óliver Torres. Then, far more seriously, came the mystery metabolic disorder which briefly appeared to put Götze’s career in doubt. There were spells at the start of last season when he looked like Dortmund’s best player again but struggles for form and fitness, and his ensuing absences at the start of this season had many fearing the worst.

So when Götze scored, the roar from the stands was from the heart. These fans so want him to succeed, as does the dressing room. “I’m enormously happy for him,” said Bürki. “I wanted to run all over the place.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mario Götze is congratulated after scoring Dortmund’s third goal in their thrilling win. Photograph: Friedemann Vogel/EPA

Götze has been fiercely protected by his colleagues. Marco Reus cut Sky’s Lothar Matthäus off during a discussion after full-time at Leverkusen last week, when the former Germany midfielder asked if Reus was feeling his close friend’s pain. “We should really stop talking about Mario every day,” Reus said. “It doesn’t do him any good. He just wants to play football.”

This weekend, he got his wish. The support received has clearly touched him. As the brothers Götze later filed through the mixed zone together, Mario wore his brother’s Augsburg shirt over his shoulders. He pointed to the printing on the back and looked towards the waiting journalists. “The real hero,” he told them, a nod to Felix’s recent dedication of a late equaliser at Bayern to his big brother. This comeback, like the season, is in its infancy but at moments like these there is nowhere Götze, or his many supporters, would rather be.

Talking points

• Bayern have now gone four games without a win after Gladbach – maybe the nearest they have to a recent bogey team – strolled to a 3-0 win on their visit to Munich, perhaps taking heart from Ajax’s gutsy Champions League display in the week. Another big goal in the burgeoning Bundesliga debut season of Alessane Pléa opened the scoring, Lars Stindl took advantage of some horrific defending and Patrick Herrmann scored the third despite being one of only two Gladbach players in the box at a corner. Another injury, to David Alaba, underlined that squad maintenance, rather than coach Niko Kovač, is a serious factor in recent problems.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A dejected Thomas Müller during Gladbach’s win. Photograph: Pixathlon/Rex/Shutterstock

• Tayfun Korkut ended last season exiting the Allianz Arena with a similar swagger to Gladbach’s – his Stuttgart side’s 4-1 win over a celebrating Bayern would have been enough for a Europa League spot had it not been for Eintracht Frankfurt’s surprise DfB Pokal win the week after. Less than five months later he’s looking for new employment, sacked on Sunday morning following a 3-1 reverse at similarly-lowly Hannover. Korkut’s injection of enterprise into this side was one of the surprises of the second half of last season but sporting director Michael Reschke talked of “the lack of development in the course of this season” as he delivered the news, with all that impetus lost. Dortmund await after the international break. And Bobby Wood celebrated his USA recall by scoring twice against them. Wow.

• It’s a happier ship at Werder Bremen, who recovered from their surprise loss at Stuttgart by beating Wolfsburg to go second. There was a rapturous reception for Claudio Pizarro after he came on as substitute in the week he turned 40 – and subsequently rolled back the years with a sublime pass to create Johannes Eggestein’s clincher.

• Eleven days after their 7-0 shellacking at Dortmund, Nürnberg went one ‘better’ in a 6-0 thrashing at Leipzig. Goalkeeper Fabian Bredlow was disarmingly frank about discussion of his position. “I conceded six. If we’re not going to talk about it now, when are we?”