DFB-Pokal
This season’s German Cup has thrown up some remarkable stories. As the semi-finals approach, Nick Bidwell examines the remaining contenders
While the Year of the Dragon has recently got underway in China, the 2023-24 German Cup – AKA the DFB-Pokal, Germany’s premier knockout competition – has bore all the hallmarks of the Year of the Underdog.
Of the five teams in the draw for the semi-finals (including the participants of the Saarbrucken-Borussia Monchengladbach quarterfinal, which was postponed because of heavy rains and at the time of writing had yet to be replayed), non-Bundesliga sides were in the majority with Saarbrucken of the third division plus second-tier outfits Kaiserslautern and Fortuna Dusseldorf still standing.
Top-flight clubs have been dropping like flies from the word go. Four teams (Darmstadt, Bochum, Augsburg and Werder Bremen) were sent packing in the first round; eight (Bayern Munich, Cologne, Hoffenheim, Heidenheim, Mainz, Freiburg, Union Berlin and RB Leipzig) were dumped out in the second; while Borussia Dortmund, Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt departed the scene in the last 16.
By the quarter-finals, only three Bundesliga sides (Gladbach, Bayer Leverkusen and Stuttgart) were left. Not since the 2003-04 season, when only Bayern, Bremen and Gladbach qualified for the last eight, has such Bundesliga carnage taken place; a highly embarrassing state of affairs for the big boys, of course, but testament also to German football’s strength in depth. Indeed, across one February weekend a few weeks ago, the 2. Bundesliga attracted more spectators than the Bundesliga, with 284,643 fans attending second-tier matches compared to 261,099 in the top flight.
Geographically, the last five teams all come from the western side of the country: Kaiserslautern and Saarbrucken from the southwest and the Rhineland trio of Gladbach, Leverkusen and Dusseldorf.
The semis take place on April 2-3, with Kaiserslautern awaiting the winners of Saarbrucken v Gladbach, and Leverkusen hosting Dusseldorf.
FORTUNA DUSSELDORF
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the cosmopolitan Rhineland city of Dusseldorf was very much the place to go for heroics in knockout competitions. Spearheaded by the prolific West Germany international Klaus Allofs, Fortuna were the chosen ones of the DFB-Pokal, finishing runners-up to Cologne in 1977-78 and lifting the trophy in the two following seasons, seeing off Hertha Berlin in 1979 and local rivals Cologne in 1980. At the time, no team in Germany could match them in sudden-death encounters and it was during this all-conquering epoch that they established a German Cup record for consecutive victories (18 in a row between 1978 and 1981).
In the 1978-79 season, they also went on a magnificent run in the European Cup Winners’ Cup, beating Romania’s Universitatea Craiov
