Few people expected the 10th-round match between Mainz and Borussia Dortmund to turn out to be a showdown involving the top two teams in the Bundesliga.

Mainz defender Nikolce Noveski and Dortmund defender Neven Subotic, a pair of former teammates, say they would have been surprised if they had been told three months ago that their teams would be battling for the lead.

“I would have found it totally unrealistic,” Noveski said. “I would have asked, ‘What’s the point of such daydreaming?’”

Anyone making such a prediction would have to have “a lot of imagination,” Subotic said.

“Probably there was no one who would have tipped that both clubs would be having so much success at the same time,” he said.

Mainz lead the standings with 24 points from eight wins in nine games. Dortmund, with seven wins, have 22 points.

Both Mainz and Dortmund go into tomorrow’s match with shaken confidence after losing to lower-tier opposition in the German Cup on Thursday but they are bound by several factors. Klopp ended his playing career and began his coaching career in Mainz; he took several staff and players, including Subotic, when he moved to Mainz in 2008.

Klopp has rejuvenated Dortmund, a club long on tradition that has six German championships and won the Champions League in 1997 but nearly went bankrupt a few years later. Dortmund now has the second youngest team in the Bundesliga after Hoffenheim.