Youngest coach: Kay Riebau has been in charge at SSV Jeddeloh II since last season and played at the club until 2017. At 28-years-old, Riebau is the youngest head coach in this year’s DFB-Pokal competition.
Homesick: FC Ingolstadt will travel to face fellow second division side SC Paderborn in the first round. This will be Ingolstadt’s 15th DFB-Pokal away game in a row. Their 2-0 victory against Karlsruher SC in August 2010 was FCI’s last home game in the competition.
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Goal droughts, cup records, returnees and the match-up between two previous GDR-Pokal winners: DFB.de round up the most important facts before the first round of the DFB-Pokal.
Goalless FC Erzgebirge Aue have not scored a DFB-Pokal goal in nearly 3 years. The last Aue player to score in the cup was Max Wegner in October 2015 in the 1-0 win against Eintracht Frankfurt. This year the first round sees Aue take on 1. FSV Mainz 05.
Previous winners: The match between FC Carl Zeiss Jena and Union Berlin will see two previous winners of the GDR-Pokal go head-to-head. In the 1968 final, Union overcame Jena 2-1 with goals from Meinhard Uentz and Ralf Quest. On the scoreboard for Jena that day was Carl Zeiss.
Home advantage: 1. FC Magdeburg have played all of their 18 DFB-Pokal games at home. No other club with over 13 cup games has had home advantage every time.
Returnees: SC Freiburg forward Nils Petersen returns to face his old club Energie Cottbus. Playing for Energie, Petersen became the second division’s top scorer in 2010/11 with 25 goals in 33 games.
Young buck: TSG Hoffenheim coach Julian Nagelsmann was born on the 23rd July 1987. Before he was born his dugout opponent this week, Michael Frontzeck, had already played in 126 Bundesliga and 16 DFB-Pokal games.
Commanding: Since the first Bundesliga in 1963/64 FC Schalke 04 have never been knocked by a team that wasn’t in the top three tiers of German football. The first round will see 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 try to change that.
Short trip: 85 kilometres separate the stadiums of Kaiserslautern and Hoffenheim. This is the shortest distance between two teams playing each other in the DFB-Pokal first round 2018/19.
Newcomers: SV Rödinghausen’s game against Dynamo Dresden will be a first for the club in the DFB-Pokal. The new coach of the East Westphalians has, however, led SV Dochtersen/Assel in Germany’s premier cup competition.
One-off: Bruno Labbadia has only ever once lost a first round cup game as a coach. That was in 2015/16 when his HSV side lost 3-2 to FC Carl Zeiss Jena, a team playing in the fourth tier at that time. This time Labbadia’s VfL Wolfsburg side will take on another 4th division side – SV Elversberg 07.
League champions: TuS Dassendorf have won the Oberliga Hamburg for the last five seasons, each time choosing not to take the step up to the Regionalliga: The first round sees them take on second division side MSV Duisburg.
Dirty dozen: Werder Bremen have been eliminated in the first round of the DFB-Pokal 12 times. No other team from the top flight has been knocked out so often at this stage. Recently-relegated Hamburger SV have also lost 12 times in the first round.
Cup veteran: Coach Heiko Herrlich’s team Bayer 04 Leverkusen will face 1. CfR Pforzheim in the first round. Herrlich won the cup twice in his playing career – in 1993 with Leverkusen and in 1995 with Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Old acquaintances: On matchday 34 of the 1999/2000 Bundesliga season SSV Ulm faced Eintracht Frankfurt in a relegation showdown, in which the winner would stay up. Ulm eventually won 2-1 when Horst Heldt converted an 89th minute penalty.
New start: The cup match between TuS Erndtebrück and Hamburger SV will see two teams meet who last season both dropped out of their respective leagues. HSV took their first steps in the second league and Erndtebrück were relegated from the Regionalliga to the Oberliga.
Firing blank: VfB Stuttgart face 3. Liga team Hansa Rostock in the first round. Only against Rostock and Borussia Mönchengladbach do VfB have a 0% success rate having met at least three times in the cup.
Youngest coach: Kay Riebau has been in charge at SSV Jeddeloh II since last season and played at the club until 2017. At 28-years-old, Riebau is the youngest head coach in this year’s DFB-Pokal competition.
Homesick: FC Ingolstadt will travel to face fellow second division side SC Paderborn in the first round. This will be Ingolstadt’s 15th DFB-Pokal away game in a row. Their 2-0 victory against Karlsruher SC in August 2010 was FCI’s last home game in the competition.