DFB-Pokal: the small club plays at home against the big club

The DFB-Pokal, or German Cup, is a knockout tournament: the loser goes out. The DFB, the German Football Association, runs the cup, which starts with 64 clubs. Each match-up is one game; each stage is a round. Below, the guide shows the 16 games of the second round. German football has levels, the divisions. The Bundesliga is the first division, with the strongest teams. The second division is called "2. Bundesliga", written exactly like that. The small club is one from the third division or lower; the big club, one from the top two.

Under the cup regulations, the small club plays at home against the big club, usually in its own stadium. Playing at home is often seen as an advantage: the team knows the pitch and has fans nearby. The small club cannot give up playing at home. In exceptional cases the game may move to another stadium, but the small club is still the home side. The rule runs from the 1st round to the semi-final, the second-to-last round. The final is outside the rule: since 1985, it has always been in Berlin.

The Soccer Addicted archive, the site's game database, checked whether the rule was followed, game by game. It holds seasons from 2005/06 to 2025/26. In Europe, a season spans two years. The check runs from the 1st round to the quarter-finals, the round before the semi-final. In 2023/24, the games of 2024 are missing, the final part of that season. In 413 games between a small club and a Bundesliga club, the small club was at home every time. In a separate group of 315 games against 2. Bundesliga clubs, it was at home every time.

On 27 and 28 October 2026, the cup holds its 2nd round, with 16 games. Only 3 small clubs won their 1st-round game. Each faces a big club, set by the draw: that makes 3 games with the small club at home. In the other 13 games, both are big clubs, and the team drawn first plays at home.

The 3 small clubs are Rot-Weiss Essen and Sonnenhof Großaspach, from the 3. Liga, the 3rd division. The other is Jeddeloh II, from the Regionalliga, the 4th division. The "II" is part of the club's name, which comes from the name of the place. It does not mean a second team of another club.

In the same order, their opponents are RB Leipzig and FC Augsburg, from the Bundesliga, and Hertha BSC, from the 2. Bundesliga. The first two games are on 27 October, and the third on 28.

In these three games, who plays at home is not a matter of luck. It is set by the regulations of the DFB, the German Football Association. The regulations use other words for the small club and the big club. In them, "amateur" means any club outside the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga, including those of the 3. Liga. And "professional" means a club from one of the two.

In the rules, the right to play at home is called "home advantage". There is one exception in the 1st-round draw, explained further down. This guide goes round by round, so you can read the draw knowing who plays at home.

Who plays in the DFB-Pokal: 64 clubs from four sources

How many clubs play in the DFB-Pokal? There are 64, under the playing regulations of the DFB, in the version of 1 July 2026. The field takes in the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga clubs of the previous season, the winners of the cups of the 21 state associations, the top four of the 3. Liga and three extra places.

What this shows: under the DFB regulations for 2026/27, 36 of the 64 places go to clubs that were in the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga the previous season. The other 28 go to state cup winners, the 3. Liga and the larger associations. Inference: in 2026/27, more than 4 in 10 places go to clubs from outside the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga in the previous season.

The B team of a professional club, the reserve side, has been excluded since the 2008/09 season. The regulations speak of "Zweite Mannschaften von Lizenzvereinen".

The 1st-round draw: two pots, and whoever is drawn first plays at home

Why did no Bundesliga club play at home in the 1st round in the 21 seasons of the archive? Because of the design of the draw. It uses two pots, the containers from which the balls bearing the clubs' names are drawn: one with the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga, the other with the amateur sides. What counts is the division the club plays in during the cup season, not the one from the year before.

There is one exception. Under the 1 July 2026 version of the regulations, the clubs promoted to the 2. Bundesliga and the club that finished 15th in the 2. Bundesliga the previous season go into the amateur pot. So does the 16th-placed club, if it stayed in the division through the relegation play-off, the extra games that decide the place. In the 1st-round draw, they count as amateur sides.

The order in which the clubs are drawn decides home advantage. A ball comes out of the amateur pot first, then one from the other pot. In a free translation from the German, the regulations say: "The team drawn first has home advantage in every case." If one pot runs out, the clubs left in the other are drawn against each other. In the archive, across 21 seasons, no Bundesliga club played at home in the 1st round, and you know that before you see the draw.

From the 2nd round to the semi-finals: clubs from the 3rd division down play at home against the Bundesliga

The 2nd round repeats the design, without the exception for promoted clubs: two pots, the amateur side first and home advantage for whoever comes out first. When the amateur sides run out, the clubs of the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga are drawn against each other, and the first club drawn plays at home. In 2026/27, only three amateur sides reached the 2nd round.

From the round of sixteen, the 3rd round, to the semi-finals, the draw uses a single pot, and the first club drawn plays at home. But one sentence of the regulations overrides the order of the draw: in games between professional and amateur sides, the amateur sides have home advantage. The 3. Liga counts as amateur: the regulations call a 3. Liga club an "Amateurverein", and the DFB classes the home games of Rot-Weiss Essen and Sonnenhof Großaspach as games between a 3. Liga club and a Bundesliga club.

In my view, this rule is the heart of the cup. The side from outside the top two divisions has home advantage against the professional side. The draw decides the opponent, but not who plays at home.

Home advantage is not negotiable either: the implementing regulations, in the 2026/27 version, say, in a free translation from the German, that home advantage "cannot be waived" in cup games. The stadium is a different matter: the regulations allow another ground "in especially well-founded exceptional cases, for an overriding interest" (also a free translation).

In the archive, the club from the 3rd division down played at home in 413 of 413 games against the Bundesliga

What happened on the pitch? The Soccer Addicted archive holds 21 seasons of the cup, from 2005/06 to 2025/26 (for 2023/24, only up to the round of sixteen, because the first half of 2024 is missing). In single games before the semi-final, the side from the 3rd division or below, which covers the 3rd division and the lower leagues, played at home against Bundesliga clubs in 413 of 413 games. Against 2. Bundesliga clubs, it was 315 of 315 games.

What this shows: in the Soccer Addicted archive, from 2005/06 to 2025/26, no single game before the semi-final had a Bundesliga or 2. Bundesliga club at home against a side from the 3rd division or below. Inference: what happened on the pitch matches the rule; the archive records the home side, not the stadium where the game was played.

Of the 413 games against Bundesliga clubs, 32 came in the round of sixteen and the quarter-finals, where the amateur rule, not the order of the draw, decides home advantage. From 2005/06 to 2007/08, the lower-division group includes B teams of professional clubs, which the cup still accepted.

Compare that with the games between the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga, where home advantage varies. Clubs from the 2. Bundesliga were at home in 57.8% (155 of 268) of the games and in 100% (53 of 53) in the 1st round. That fits the exception for promoted clubs, which is in the 1 July 2026 version of the regulations.

Bundesliga clubs knocked out in the opening round: 57 of 378

How often was a Bundesliga club knocked out in the opening round? That was 15.1% (57 of 378), about 1 in 7, between 2005/06 and 2025/26, with 18 clubs per season over 21 seasons. All 57 were playing away. The average is 2.7 eliminations per season, ranging from zero in 2008/09 to six in 2012/13. Of the 57, 70.2% (40 of 57) were knocked out by a side from the 3rd division or below, and 17 by a 2. Bundesliga side.

What this shows: in the Soccer Addicted archive, 2008/09 is the only one of the 21 seasons with no Bundesliga club eliminated in the 1st round, and 2024/25 and 2025/26 had one each. Inference: with 2026/27 also at zero, that makes three editions in a row with at most one elimination, a thin sample for talking about a trend.

Playing away, in my view, helps explain those 57. But the archive shows an association, not a cause: all of them played away, and no figure here sets them against home games.

How the game works: a single game, extra time, penalties and VAR

Each match-up is a single game, with no second leg (no return game) and no replay (a second game played to settle a level score). If normal time ends level, extra time of 2 x 15 minutes follows and, if the score is still level, penalties. The video assistant referee (VAR) is used only from the 2nd round, according to the DFB page for the 2026/27 edition.

Substitutions follow the implementing regulations, in the 2026/27 version: five substitutions per team, in three stoppages plus half-time. In extra time, a 4th stoppage opens up, but no extra substitution is allowed.

The 1st round of 2026/27: all 18 Bundesliga clubs went through

The 1st round had 32 games: 30 from 21 to 24 August 2026 and 2 in September. Borussia Dortmund and Bayern München came in on 1 and 2 September, because of the Supercup, the game between the German champion and the cup winner. None of the 18 Bundesliga clubs of 2026/27 went out. From the 2. Bundesliga, 7 clubs did.

The archive shows that three of the seven lost at the home ground of a side from outside the top two divisions. FC Heidenheim lost 5-2 at Jeddeloh II, St. Pauli lost 2-0 at Rot-Weiss Essen, and Arminia Bielefeld went out 3-0 on penalties after a 2-2 draw with Sonnenhof Großaspach. The three winners are the ones who play at home in the 2nd round.

The 2nd round of 2026/27: the 16 games on 27 and 28 October

The 2nd-round draw took place on Saturday 5 September 2026, at the German Football Museum in Dortmund. It produced 16 games: 3 with a side from outside the top two divisions playing at home and 13 between clubs of the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. The kick-off times were announced after the draw and may change.

What this shows: in the DFB list, the home side comes first, and the three amateur sides appear at home in the three games against clubs from a higher division. Inference: in the other 13, the home side is the first club drawn, as the regulations require.

The DFB-Pokal calendar up to the final in Berlin

The 2027 final will be on 29 May, in Berlin, a city that has hosted the final continuously since 26 May 1985, according to the DFB. The DFB chooses the venue for the final and, on its calendar page, does not name the stadium.

What this shows: the DFB scheduled the quarter-finals in two windows, 2 and 3 February and 9 and 10 February 2027, without saying which game falls in which. Inference: the day of each game will only be known when the DFB publishes the dates.

Supercup and Europa League: what the title is worth

The title earns a game the following season, the Supercup, the same game that pushed the opening-round games of two clubs to September in 2026. It brings together the German champion and the cup winner of the previous season; if the same club won both, the opponent is the club that finished 2nd in the Bundesliga. Since 2025/26, the game has been called the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup, according to the Bundesliga-Gruppe.

For the 2024/25 edition, the DFB wrote on 24 May 2025 that the cup winner would enter the league phase of the Europa League. The text was about Arminia Bielefeld, of the 3. Liga: with them as cup winners, only six top-division clubs, not seven, would go to Europe. The rule for the 2027/28 European season, the one for the 2026/27 cup winner, has not been confirmed.

How much the DFB-Pokal pays: the prize money of the 2024/25 edition

In the 2024/25 edition, each round paid double the previous one up to the semi-final, with a difference of 1 euro in two of the doublings. The amounts were announced by the DFB on 15 June 2024, and each club that played the round received that round's amount. As half of the clubs go out in each round, each round distributed the same 13.4 million euros, and the five added up to the 67 million euros the DFB cites.

What this shows: according to the DFB, in 2024/25 the prize doubled with each round up to the semi-final, and the final paid 2.88 million euros to the beaten finalist and 4.32 million euros to the champion. Inference: the final has its own logic, because neither amount is double the semi-final prize.

The champions: 21 titles for Bayern München and a 3. Liga finalist

Bayern München have 21 DFB-Pokal titles up to and including the 2025/26 edition, according to the DFB table. Werder Bremen are second, with 6, and Schalke 04, Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt have 5 each, and 1. FC Köln, VfB Stuttgart and 1. FC Nürnberg, 4 each.

What this shows: according to the DFB, Bayern München have 21 titles, more than triple Werder Bremen's 6. Inference: the gap from Bayern München to second place, 15 titles, is bigger than all the other gaps in the table added together.

The latest final, on 23 May 2026, at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, was the 83rd in history and gave Bayern München their 21st title: a 3-0 win over VfB Stuttgart. In the previous one, in 2024/25, the DFB called Arminia Bielefeld a "Drittligist", a 3. Liga club, and VfB Stuttgart won 4-2.

How to read the next draw: who plays at home, and why

To read the next draw of the 2026/27 edition or the 2nd-round list of games, start with the division of the two clubs. If one is amateur and the other professional, the amateur plays at home. If both are from the Bundesliga or the 2. Bundesliga, the club drawn first plays at home. In the 1st round, remember the promoted clubs, which are drawn with the amateur sides. The rules in this guide are those of the 1 July 2026 version of the DFB regulations.

In the archive's single games before the semi-final, from 2005/06 to 2025/26, what happened on the pitch matches the rule. The side from the 3rd division or below played at home against Bundesliga clubs in all 413 games. The numbers do not say who goes through, only who plays at home. When Rot-Weiss Essen play at home against RB Leipzig, on 27 October 2026, the draw will already have chosen the opponent. Home advantage was settled earlier still, by the regulations.