The Borussia Dortmund U19 will play TSV 1860 Munich in the semi-final 1st leg for the German A-Jugend Championship on Tuesday at 20:00hrs in the Signal Iduna Park. Head Coach Hannes Wolf said: " we hope that we will get a lot of support."

It is the big stage for Borussia Dortmund's Academy. Wolf said about the year groups 1997 and 1998, the group that he led to the title in 2014 and 2015 in the B-Jugend and the team that will now compete with Werder Bremen, TSG Hoffenheim and of course semi-final opponent 1860 Munich for the A-Jugend crown: "it is a fairy tale if you look and see what this generation has achieved." He also added: "there are no favourites."

Even though the Munich Lions had to let TSG Hoffenheim slip past them in the race for the Southern title and "only" came in second, Wolf still rates them as the absolute elite within German Academy football. 1860 only missed out on first place on the last three match days (1-2 in Freiburg, 0-5 against Hoffenheim, 1-3 in Ingolstadt), after being at the top from match day 20 onward: "they dominated the Southern league, but they went through a little slump at the end. 1860 is a very strong footballing team. We have a big challenge ahead of us."

There again, his team were the bee's knees in the West. They won ten games in a row from match day six to match day fifteen and after that they stayed at the top all the way. The fact that they suffered a 1-2 defeat away to Fortuna Düsseldorf "doesn't hurt us", according to Wolf. Because the focus was already on Tuesday, on the big game on the big stage in the Signal Iduna Park: "this is the way we wanted it, this shows that the Academy work at Borussia Dortmund is very highly regarded and the boys have thoroughly deserved this game in this stadium."

Wolf does not see it as an advantage that the majority of players are playing their third semi-final in a row: "every time it comes down to being able to cope with this special type of pressure."

Borussia's U19 needs to make sure they put themselves in a good position for the 2nd leg on Whit-Monday in Munich when they play in front of their own crowd on Tuesday. There will be free entrance to the Signal Iduna Park with free choice of seats in the West- and South lower stands. Important: every spectator has to get a free ticket from the ticket office at the stadium. The gates open at 18:30hrs, kick-off is at 20:00hrs. SPORT1 will broadcast the game live.

Wolf said: "we want to make sure that the best is yet to come." Wolf has a fully fit squad apart from long term injury casualty Patrick Fritsch, who suffered a cruciate ligament injury at the end of October. This means he will also have the two young pros Christian Pulisic and Felix Passlack available. Wolf said: "when they come to us, they come home and they really put their foot down." He added: "we are proud that two 17 year olds can play with the pros."

On Tuesday they want to lay the foundation playing together with their teammates from this "fairy tale generation" so that Borussia Dortmund's U19 can make it to the final. Boris Rupert