“It hasn’t really sunk in yet, we haven’t had the time for that,” said BVB coach Edin Terzic of the DFB-Pokal triumph. Three days after winning the cup, Borussia Dortmund are back in the race for a place in the Champions League when they travel to FSV Mainz 05.

"We’re not only starting to focus on this today. We promised ourselves a few weeks ago that we wanted to achieve both objectives," Terzic said. "We promised ourselves that we'd give everything to get six more points as cup winners. We've put ourselves in a great position, but there's no point in letting up now," the BVB coach added at his improvised press conference, which on this occasion was not held at the media centre in Dortmund.

That's because there have been some changes ahead of the penultimate round of the 2020/21 Bundesliga season. And that is not solely a reference to the fact that – unlike the other teams – both finalists have had their fixtures moved from Saturday to Sunday. The quarantine enforced by the DFL started when the Black & Yellows travelled to the cup final, with the contingent then travelling directly from Berlin to Mainz on Friday. Terzic answered the journalists' questions from the team hotel and stated: "All the boys who travelled with us are available. It was an intense game. We tried to focus a lot of our work on regeneration. We’ll have another light session on the pitch today."

There is one absentee from the party travelling to Mainz, however: the DFB-Pokal, which has instead been taken to Dortmund for safekeeping. The focus is on the game in Mainz and qualifying for the UEFA Champions League. The Black & Yellows have put themselves in a good position to achieve that goal with five wins in a row. After their victory over Leipzig last weekend and Frankfurt's draw against Mainz, BVB moved up to fourth place in the table – and have their Champions League destiny in their own hands again. "Now we’re no longer the hunter, but the hunted. We'll see how Frankfurt get on today and prepare ourselves so that we can pick up three more important points tomorrow," Terzic said. "The season still has seven days to go. And we want to give these seven days our absolute all and go one better."

Next up for Borussia is a resurgent Mainz side. The men from Rhenish-Hesse picked up seven points in the first half of the season, but have taken 29 points – the same number as BVB – since the second half began. The Zero-Fivers have not lost in nine games. "Mainz have developed incredibly under Bo Svensson. They’re on a very good path. They look very solid and are dangerous on the counter-attack,” said Terzic. "But we want to break down their defence and continue our run. We'd be better off than Mainz with the three points tomorrow.”

If they are to get the three points, his team must "be prepared to play through the press. We’ll need to show good movement, look lively and cannot make too many sideways passes. But we’ll need an extremely good performance because they don’t give too much away."

Christina Reinke

BVB TV: The press conference before the Mainz match