Of course, Klopp will be revisiting his old stomping ground where he was worshipped as a god, and is still very much a part of everyone at the Coface Arena's hearts. He takes his Dortmund side to face a Mainz team who sit seventh in the table after a fantastic start, so good infact that it is the best since Holtby, Schürrle and co. were at the club. Nowadays, it's Nicolai Müller and Shinji Okazaki were passed the batton and have not let anyone down, the pair have been excellent this term, scoring twelve goals between them so far. Thomas Tuchel, who has no new injury concerns ahead of the game, has had this to say before the game:

"We might be able to rise above ourselves. That's definitely possible, I hope we can do it too. This is definitely the base to have a really good game." Tuchel went onto say that, "I can not recognize the great difference of Dortmund, but it's a great opportunity for us. The situation is clear that this is a nuisance for Dortmund when Manuel Friedrich plays with so little practice, instead of Hummels or Subotic."

Meanwhile, "die Schwarz-gelbe" picked up a vital win during the week against Napoli, which put them in the driving seat to qualify ahead of their Italian counterparts, despite the three-one win, the performance was plagued by missed chances, this isn't anything out of the blue for Dortmund fans, but in recent weeks it has been absolutely dire. The Nord-Rhine Westphalia side also have a defensive crisis at the moment, having lost their last three games before the Napoli match and without their usual back four in all of those, Klopp has had to re-adjust. This included Sven Bender playing centre-back with a broken nose and going through four different shirts during the game, despite this, Klopp is confident that "Iron-Manni" will still play on Saturday. Manuel Fredrich is almost certain to return to the starting eleven, as he was ineligible for the mid-week game against Napoli, here's what Jürgen Klopp has to say about the biggest game of matchday fourteen:

"It is unlikely that we will chalk up an easy win there, Mainz are a really strong side, a side brimming with confidence and that is llooking forward to the game against the Bundesliga runners-up. Thomas Tuchel is spot on when he says, 'The cool thing is that we can beat Dortmund, but we don't have too' For us it's more like, we can and should beat them."

It shapes up to be a great game against two of the Bundesliga's most exciting coaches, but Klopp's men should have the quality to go out and get the job done, especially if Lewandowski finds his early season form, as the big Pole has been off the boil recently.

Quotes from Borussia Dortmund and Mainz' own websites.

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About the author
Jonathan Walsh
SoccerSight IFA commentator. VAVEL deputy editor-in-chief/VAVEL Bundesliga editor-in-chief and writer. Email: [email protected]