Five Things we learned from the DFB Pokal Round of Sixteen

By: Jan | January 31st, 2008

Diego - Marc Ziegler The DFB Pokal offered a little prelude to this weekend’s Bundesliga action with Bayern Munich playing an away match against a third division club in front of 60000 fans, while second Bundesliga sides Hoffenheim and Jena sent two Bundesliga teams packing. What else?

1. You don’t need Jens Lehmann for Penalty Heroics
Borussia Dortmund famously didn’t sign Jens Lehmann in the winter transfer window. The fact that they quite publicly tried to do it though, can’t have gone too well with both, Roman Weidenfeller (out injured for three months) and his back up Marc Ziegler. Especially because Dortmund have an excellent record with Marc Ziegler in goal this season, and he was instrumental in keeping it that way on Tuesday. In an entertaining encounter, Dortmund were leading 2-0 against Bremen, when two late penalties offered Bremen a road back into the match. Diego slotted the first one home, with Ziegler coming quite close. He then went on to save Diego’s second penalty to send Dortmund into their first DFB Pokal quarter final since the glory days of the nineties. Watch out for Marc Ziegler famously not staying in Dortmund during the summer transfer window.

2. You only need 324 Seconds to win a Match from 2-0 down
It was the first competitive match for Aachen’s new coach Jürgen Seeberger, and for 83 minutes it looked like he could celebrate it with a DFB Pokal quarter final ticket. 324 seconds later 1860 Munich had rewritten the score line from 2-0 to 2-3 to snatch that ticket instead. There’s hope for a Munich derby in the cup and 1860 Munich will want to take this psychological boost into their second Bundesliga campaign, where they are among a group of contenders for promotion.

3. You only need 13 Minutes to score a Hattrick
The catch: your first name has to read Mario and your last name should be Gomez. Stuttgart were playing against Werder Bremen’s third division side and everything looked set for a classic cup fight, as Bremen dominated the opening stages of the match. Between the 29th and 42nd minute though Mario Gomez single-handedly sent Stuttgart to the next round. The fans in the Weserstadion nonetheless got their cup fight, because a second half comeback of Bremen meant the final score was just a close 3-2 in Stuttgart’s favour. Check out the match highlights below and pay close attention to Mario Gomez’ third goal and then discuss the merits of active and passive offside positions in the comments section.

4. You have to defend a lead for the full 90 Minutes
Stating the obvious, but what else can you say when Schalke continuously give up their leads? They draw half of their matches and take the lead in almost all of them. They were leading 1-0 against Wolfsburg up until the 90th minute and the very last corner kick of the match. Yet another blunder by Manuel Neuer though gifted Wolfsburg the equaliser. The match was sent to extra-time or 30 minutes of safety first football. Wolfsburg then won the following penalty shootout. This isn’t Manuel Neuer’s season and if he continues his shaky performances it won’t be Schalke’s season either.

5. Hamburg are not a Team for Cup Romantics
Unless you are a Hamburg supporter hoping for the first title in 21 years of course. But Hamburg’s third and second division opposition so far failed to get anywhere near an upset. Huub Stevens has injected a no-nonsense approach into his team, which turned Rot-Weiss Essen’s game of the year into a straight 3-0 victory for Hamburg.