Peter Stöger has apparently never described a glass as being half-empty in his entire life. It's always been at least half-full. "You can talk yourself down your whole life. That's not my way," said the Austrian head coach, who is highly optimistic ahead of the final day of the season, on which three teams will be battling for two UEFA Champions League places. Among them, and in the best position, is Borussia Dortmund.

Two of the contenders, BVB and TSG Hoffenheim, will face off in Sinsheim at 15:30 CET on Saturday, while Bayer Leverkusen will host Hannover 96. Borussia Dortmund will only miss out on Europe's elite club competition if they lose by a margin of two goals or more at Hoffenheim and Leverkusen can better the Black & Yellows' six-goal superior goal difference.

Stöger is extremely confident that will not happen and the aim will be achieved. "Because we're starting in a really strong position. Because I trust in our ability to get a point or a victory there." The coach spoke of an "exciting situation" and added: "Hoffenheim will have to take risks." That will result in there being space to exploit, which was missing in the 2-1 defeat by Mainz last time out but had been used to good effect in the previous encounters against Leverkusen (4-0) and Bremen (1-1).

Over the last week of training, his team has given him the feeling that they have "accepted the situation" and that, having missed out on the opportunity to wrap it up last weekend, "when we let it slip", they "will make the most" of their second chance.

Back in December, nobody would have expected Borussia Dortmund – then in eighth place – to be heading into the final day of the season "three points and a few goals ahead," noted Stöger, who added: "Back then every Dortmund lover would have simply said: Nice story." That's why he "absolutely cannot understand how it could now be regarded as an unfavourable situation. We will give it our all to achieve our objective and I am convinced that we can make it."
Boris Rupert