On Friday afternoon, the area around the Berlin Olympic Stadium was cleaned up. The shards were swept up that had remained after Hertha BSC’s final appearance in the first relegation game. And while Berlin’s Bundesliga club can only try to sweep up its shambles in the second leg in Hamburg on Monday, the clean-up work at the Olympic Stadium had to be done more quickly – and above all the preparations.

Because after the relegation is in Berlin before the cup final. And this time for many fans it may not be the big one, but it is a very interesting number in the midst of all the title sadness in German professional football, in which Bayern are usually ahead on all fronts: The new DFB Cup winner from Berlin will have his first title celebrate, neither the almost 120-year-old SC Freiburg nor the young lawn ball sport Leipzig have won such a big one so far.

A lot can happen on Saturday (8 p.m. / ARD) and the public audition on Friday was characterized by tension. Both teams know what’s at stake. Christian Streich, the shirt-sleeved man from southern Baden, gave the whole thing a relaxing touch.

Just the way Freiburg’s coach pronounces the word “Leverkusen” (Freiburg conqueror in the last Bundesliga game of the season) (“Läberkuse”, or “Leberkäse”) has entertainment value and something like that is also a trademark of SC Freiburg, the club that is close to the people. “I think tomorrow 40,000 spectators will support us,” said Streich. “I know a lot of people who go there.” But certainly not all 40,000, right? “As much as we are looking forward to the game, we have to be focused and show the best we can on the pitch,” said Streich.

In the league this season, both games between Freiburg and Leipzig ended 1-1, but what does that mean: A promising underdog from the south faces the recently scratched minimal favorite from Saxony, for whom a liberation is possible on Saturday is. Because of course the people of Leipzig suffer from their image of being just a branch of an Austrian beverage multinational. With a title you could emancipate yourself from the reputation of being highly financed and unsuccessful. They lost two finals in Berlin.

Peter Gulacsi, who has been at the Leipziger Tor for seven years, was there both times. The team captain said: “Hunger is great, we will do everything we can to make it.” Anything else would also be stupid from Leipzig’s point of view. Incidentally, they could be the first team from the east of the republic to win a title in German professional football after reunification. “It would be something really big for Leipzig and the region,” said Gulacsi.

Leipzig coach Domenico Tedesco, on the other hand, spoke strongly to the opponent, with praise for the colleague from Freiburg. “I think Christian, you’re just indispensable. The people of Freiburg do very, very clever things. The transfer of Matthias Ginter speaks for itself, it’s no longer a small club, it’s a top German club.”

That was almost too much of a good thing, but Streich was touched and said: “If we could both win, that would be nice. And if we don’t win, the world won’t end.” Hopefully not.