Arminia Bielefeld head coach Michel Kniat was full of pride after his team beat Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 in the DFB-Pokal semi-final on Tuesday.

In doing so, Bielefeld became the fourth third-tier side to reach the DFB-Pokal final in history. They got there by beating four Bundesliga teams in consecutive rounds.

"I am so proud of the team," said Kniat. "The whole region is feeling this. No one will be sleeping tonight.

"We defended with a lot of passion and that was the key. We worked extremely hard.

"It was great to go into the break with the lead and in the second half we kept up the pressure for what was a deserved win," he added.

Prior to Tuesday's defeat, Leverkusen had never previously lost a DFB-Pokal match under Xabi Alonso and won last season's competition.

The defending champions took the lead through Jonathan Tah in the 17th minute, though they were quickly pegged back after Marius Worl equalised three minutes later.

Close to half-time, it got even better for the hosts after Maximillian Grosser volleyed them into the lead.

After securing a hard-fought victory, midfielder Mael Corboz could scarcely believe what they had achieved, having been in a third-tier relegation fight last season.

"Every round was surreal. I could not really believe it," he said. "It was the worst case scenario to concede under the first 20 minutes, but we have been through so much this year and last year. In a relegation battle in the third division and one year later we are in the DFB Pokal final.

"The fans had been saying we are going to Berlin since January."

For Leverkusen, meanwhile, their season now comes down to their Bundesliga title defence – they are currently six points behind leaders Bayern Munich with seven games remaining.

Assessing their semi-final defeat, midfielder Robert Andrich accepted that they deservedly lost.

"It is hard to say what went wrong so shortly after the game, but when we say that Bielefeld deserved to reach the final, then that means we did a lot of things wrong," he said.

"We were missing all our usual strengths. We could not have an impact up front, and we made far too many mistakes at the back.

"It was clearly our worst game this season. We have to accept that we messed it up."

Arminia Bielefeld will face either Stuttgart or RB Leipzig in the final.