The 1st major round of the German Cup, one of the premier cup tournaments in Europe. All 36 Bundesliga and 2.Liga clubs are automatically qualified, with the top 4 from the 3.Liga. The remaining 24 clubs are winners of their regional cup tournaments, and can range from “traditionals” on hard-times to amatuer sides you’ve never heard of. One nice feature of the German Cup is that the amateur side *always* gets home field advantage, which can sometimes lead to upsets, or at least a nice pay day. Given the tough competition, the Bundesliga sides generally show up with close to full strength sides as well, and tend to take the Cup fairly seriously. However, some didn’t take it seriously enough, as no less than five Bundesliga clubs don’t get past this 1st round.
The craziest match was in Chemnitz, as the 3.Liga club upset Mainz after penalties. The match was a crazy see-saw that ended with amazing scoreline of 5-5 after extra-time. Mainz thus becomes the first Bundesliga side to fall. Stuttgart also failed to advance, although they were vanquished by a Bochum side that has started well in the 2.Liga and has hopes for promotion. They were soon followed by Augsburg, who were upended by 4th division Magdeburg. The Fuggers had 80% of the possession, but really didn’t threaten the host’s goal. FCM fought well and took advanatge in a defensive mistake to grab a historic win. Paderborn was the 3rd Bundesliga club to fall, losing at RedBull Leipzig. This isn’t so much of an upset, as Paderborn has yet to actually play a Bundesliga match, and Leipzig has RedBull money. It was a pretty even match, but Leipzig pulled it out in overtime.
However the biggest Bundesliga fail happened on the closing game of the round, on Monday night. Schalke went down at 3.Liga side Dynamo Dresden.
The Blues played horribly – coach Jens Keller spoke of 6 “total failures” in the lineup – and were falt throughout the match. Dresden didn’t have much either, but energetically fought for every ball and were rewarded with a famous victory.
Wolfsburg was on the verge of getting knocked out by Darmstadt, but eventually prevailed on penalties as a couple of the Darmstadters lost their nerves. Eintracht Frankfurt didn’t do much at all at Viktoria Berlin, only finishing the match off in the closing minute. Hamburg had a rough time at Cottbus, but Rene Adler stopped two penalties as HSV prevailed on spot-kicks.
Another upset was 4th division Würzburger Kickers taking down 2.Liga Fortuna Düsseldorf. A similar result was last year’s Cup success, 4th division Kickers Offenbach, dumping 2.Liga side Ingolstadt.
There were a few wipeouts. Hoffenheim had little mercy for Paloma Hamburg as they ran up a big score. Stuttgarter Kickers had the biggest crowd in years, but it was little help against overpowering Dortmund.
Stefan Kiessling warmed up for the coming Bundesliga season as he scored the first 5 goals for the Aspirins against the battling 6th division Waldalgesheim side. Bayern München really had no problems against Preußen Münster.
Chemnitzer FC - 1. FSV Mainz 05 5:5 (5-4 p) 10,287 Alem. Waldalgesheim - Bayer 04 Leverkusen 0:6 (0:4) 7,524 MSV Duisburg - 1. FC Nürnberg 1:0 (1:0) 18,108 FC 08 Homburg - Bor. Mönchengladbach 1:3 (1:2) 17,000 Optik Rathenow - FC St. Pauli 1:3 (0:2) 4,500 Bremer SV - Eintracht Braunschweig 0:1 (0:0) 2,901 VfL Bochum - VfB Stuttgart 2:0 (1:0) 22,694 FC Viktoria Köln - Hertha BSC 2:4 (0:2) 5,239 Stuttgarter Kickers - Borussia Dortmund 1:4 (0:1) 37,000 FC Astoria Walldorf - Hannover 96 1:3 (0:1) 3,400 FT Braunschweig - 1. FC Köln 0:4 (0:0) 9,067 SV Waldkirch - SpVgg Greuther Fürth 0:3 (0:0) 3,820 SV Wehen Wiesbaden - 1. FC Kaiserslautern 0:0 (3-5 p) 9,496 Viktoria 1889 Berlin - Eintracht Frankfurt 0:2 (0:1) 10,514 Sportfreunde Siegen - FSV Frankfurt 3:3 (4-5 p) 4,226 BSV SW Rehden - VfR Aalen 1:1 (3-4 p) 900 Holstein Kiel - 1860 München 1:2 (1:0) 8,408 FV Illertissen - Werder Bremen 2:3 aet 10,205 Carl Zeiss Jena - Erzgebirge Aue 0:1 (0:1) 8,745 USC Paloma Hamburg - 1899 Hoffenheim 0:9 (0:7) 4,750 * Eintracht Trier - SC Freiburg 0:2 (0:0) 5,292 Preußen Münster - Bayern München 1:4 (0:2) 16,797 * Würzburger Kickers - Fortuna Düsseldorf 3:2 aet 10,500 1. FC Neubrandenburg - Karlsruher SC 1:3 (0:0) 3,000 Arminia Bielefeld - SV Sandhausen 4:1 (1:0) 7,305 1. FC Magdeburg - FC Augsburg 1:0 (0:0) 17,854 RB Leipzig - SC Paderborn 07 2:1 aet 24,348 SV Darmstadt 98 - VfL Wolfsburg 0:0 (4-5 p) 13,900 1. FC Heidenheim - 1. FC Union Berlin 2:1 (0:0) 7,600 Kickers Offenbach - FC Ingolstadt 04 0:0 (4-2 p) 7,386 Energie Cottbus - Hamburger SV 2:2 (1-4 p) 16,184 Dynamo Dresden - FC Schalke 04 2:1 (1:0) 29,590 *