Hertha's dream of Cup final at home ended again, by Kaiserslautern

Hertha Berlin's dream of reaching the German Cup final in their Olympic Stadium home venue for the first time ended extactly there in a 3-1 quarter-final exit against second tier rivals Kaiserslautern on Wednesday.

Jan Elvedi's in the sixth minute, Richmond Tachie in the 38th, and Filip Kaloc in the 69th were on target for the clinical visitors, with the third ending Hertha's comeback efforts earlier in the second half.

Fabian Reese got a stoppage time consolation goal while not to blame for the defeat was Hertha goalkeeper Marius Gersbeck who played for the first time since being fined by an Austrian court over an altercation during a pre-season training camp.

The Cup final has been played permanently in the Olympic Stadium since 1985 but while Hertha's amateurs famously reached the decider in 1993 the first team has never achieved this feat.

Instead it was the 1990 and 1996 Cup winners Kaiserslautern who joined fellow twice winners Fortuna Düsseldorf in the last four, after Düsseldorf outlasted St Pauli Hamburg 4-3 on penalties in another second tier duel on Tuesday.

The game took place in front of a sell-out crowd of 74,245 which included Eileen Bernstein-Rose, the widow of club president Kay Bernstein, who died on January 16 at age 43.

The other quarter-finals are next week, when unbeaten Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen take on VfB Stuttgart and Borussia Mönchengladbach visit third-division Saarbrücken, who ousted record winners Bayern Munich and Eintracht Frankfurt in the previous rounds.

The semi-finals are drawn February 10 and played April 2 and 3.