Borussia Dortmund will take things game by game with their hopes of Champions League qualification hanging by a thread, coach Niko Kovac said on Friday.

Dortmund, who take on Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals next month, have struggled in the Bundesliga and are 11th on 35 points, 10 off fourth place.

They have eight games left to play this campaign, with the first of those coming against third-placed Mainz on Sunday.

With 45 points after 26 games, Mainz are enjoying their best Bundesliga campaign – this is the latest point in a top-flight season at which they have been in the top three.

Dortmund, meanwhile, have only taken six points from their six league games under Kovac, the worst start by any BVB coach since Jurgen Rober, who also oversaw two wins and four losses.

The Opta supercomputer assigns them just a 1.2% chance of making the top four, but Kovac hopes taking the remaining fixtures as they come will help his struggling side turn things around. 

"It is only about the game against Mainz," Kovac told reporters. "We have to win it any way we can.

"We are expected to win this game. We are not looking at the eight remaining matches but focusing only on the game this weekend."

Dortmund entered the international break on the back of two straight defeats, going down to Augsburg and RB Leipzig.

"We have to win the game on Sunday and to do it we need a top performance over most of the game," Kovac said. 

"No team can dominate over 90 minutes. But we have to make sure we do it for more than 45 minutes.

"If we do that, then we have good chances of winning the game." 

Having collected only 10 points from nine games since the halfway point in the season, this is BVB's worst second half of a campaign since 2007-08 (also 10).

And with just 35 total points after 26 matchdays, this is their worst overall record at this stage of any season in 10 years (33 in 2014-15).