2020–21 DFB-Pokal
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The 2020–21
DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal (), also known as the German Cup in English language, English, is a German knockout Association football, football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competiti ...
was the 78th season of the annual German
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
cup competition. Sixty-four teams participated in the competition, including all teams from the previous year's
Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...
and 2. Bundesliga. The competition began on 11 September 2020 with the first of six rounds and ended on 13 May 2021 with the final at the Olympiastadion in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, a nominally neutral venue, which has hosted the final since 1985. The competition was originally scheduled to begin on 14 August 2020 and conclude on 22 May 2021, though this was delayed due to postponement of the previous season as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. The DFB-Pokal is considered the second-most important club title in German football after the Bundesliga championship. The DFB-Pokal is run by the
German Football Association The German Football Association ( ; DFB ) is the governing body of Association football, football, futsal, and beach soccer in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and ...
(DFB). Bundesliga side
Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...
were the two-time defending champions, having defeated
Bayer Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen, officially known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH () and commonly known as Bayer Leverkusen or simply Leverkusen, is a German professional football club based in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It competes in the B ...
4–2 in the previous final to clinch a record 20th title. However, Bayern were knocked out of the competition in the second round by second-division side
Holstein Kiel Kieler Sportvereinigung Holstein von 1900 e.V., commonly known as Holstein Kiel () or KSV Holstein, is a German association football and sports club based in the city of Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein. From the 1900s through the 1960s, the club was o ...
, losing on penalties following a 2–2 draw after extra time. Borussia Dortmund won the
final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...
4–1 against
RB Leipzig RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V. (), commonly known as RB Leipzig or informally as Red Bull Leipzig, is a German professional association football, football club based in Leipzig, Saxony. The club was founded in 2009 by the initiative of the company ...
for their fifth title. As winners, Dortmund featured in the 2021 edition of the
DFL-Supercup The Franz Beckenbauer Supercup or ''German Super Cup'' is a one-off association football, football match in Germany that features the winners of the Bundesliga championship and the DFB-Pokal. The competition is run by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (E ...
at the start of the next season, and faced the champions of the
2020–21 Bundesliga The 2020–21 Bundesliga was the 58th season of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier football competition. It began on 18 September 2020 and concluded on 22 May 2021. The season was originally scheduled to begin on 21 August 2020 and conclude on 15 ...
,
Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...
. The winners of the DFB-Pokal also earned automatic qualification for the group stage of the 2021–22 edition of the
UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...
. However, as Dortmund already qualified for the 2021–22 edition of the
UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...
through their position in the Bundesliga, the spot went to the team in sixth place, and the league's
UEFA Europa Conference League The UEFA Conference League (UECL), usually known simply as the Conference League, is an annual association football, football competition organised since 2021 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European foot ...
play-off round spot went to the team in seventh place.


Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

On 31 August 2020, the
DFB DFB may refer to: Music * Dem Franchize Boyz, an Atlanta hip hop group * Dysfunctional Family BBQ, a New York festival Sport * DFB-Pokal, a football cup competition in Germany Organisations * Furka Steam Railway (), Switzerland * German Footbal ...
Executive Committee decided to extend the use of five substitutions in matches to the 2020–21 season, which was implemented at the end of the previous season to lessen the impact of fixture congestion caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. The use of five substitutes, based on the decision of competition organisers, had been extended by
IFAB The International Football Association Board (IFAB) is an international self-regulatory body of association football that is known for determining the Laws of the Game (association football), Laws of the Game, the regulations for the gameplay o ...
until 2021. Due to the impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic in Germany The COVID-19 pandemic in Germany has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. On 27 January 2020, the first case in Germany was confirmed near Munich, Bavaria. By mid February, the arising cluster of cases had been fully contained ...
and the high economic and organisational effort required to host the fixture, including loss of ticket revenue for matches
behind closed doors Behind Closed Doors may refer to: Film, television and radio Film * ''Behind Closed Doors'' (1929 film), an early talkie starring Virginia Valli * Behind Closed Doors (1961 film), ''Behind Closed Doors'' (1961 film), an Italian comedy film by Dino ...
, many amateur teams in the competition decided to waive their home rights and exchange the duty of hosting the match with their opponents. The DFB in general allowed spectators if approved by the local
health department A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entity, Subnational entities, such as State (administrative division), states, county, counties an ...
, though away supporters were not permitted at the start of the competition.


Participating clubs

The following 64 teams qualified for the competition:


Format


Participation

The DFB-Pokal began with a round of 64 teams. The 36 teams of the
Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...
and 2. Bundesliga, along with the top four finishers of the
3. Liga The 3. Liga is a professional association football league and the third division in Germany. In the German football league system, it is positioned between the 2. Bundesliga and the fourth-tier Regionalliga. The modern 3. Liga was formed for t ...
, automatically qualified for the tournament. Of the remaining slots, 21 were given to the cup winners of the regional football associations, the ''
Verbandspokal A Verbandspokal (English: "association cup") is a regional men's association football competition in Germany. There are 21 Verbandspokal competitions which function as qualifying tournaments for the following season's DFB-Pokal, the premier Germ ...
''. The three remaining slots were given to the three regional associations with the most men's teams, which were Bavaria, Lower Saxony, and Westphalia. The best-placed amateur team of the
Regionalliga Bayern The Regionalliga Bayern () is the highest association football league in the state of Bavaria () and the Bavarian football league system. It is one of five Regionalligas in German football, the fourth tier of the German football league system, b ...
was given the Spot for Bavaria. For Lower Saxony, the
Lower Saxony Cup The Lower Saxony Cup () is an annual football cup competition, held by the () since 1956. For sponsorship reasons, the official name of the competition is Krombacher-Pokal.3. Liga The 3. Liga is a professional association football league and the third division in Germany. In the German football league system, it is positioned between the 2. Bundesliga and the fourth-tier Regionalliga. The modern 3. Liga was formed for t ...
and
Regionalliga Nord The Regionalliga Nord () is the fourth tier of the German football league system in the states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen and Hamburg. It is one of five leagues at this level, together with the Regionalliga Bayern, Regionalliga N ...
teams, and the other for amateur teams. The winners of each path qualified. For Westphalia, the winner of a play-off between the best-placed team of the
Regionalliga West The Regionalliga West is a German professional football division administered by the German Football Association#Western Germany, Western German Football Association based in Duisburg. It is one of the five German regional football associations. ...
and
Oberliga Westfalen The Oberliga Westfalen is the highest level football league in the region of Westphalia, which is part of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The league existed from 1978 to 2008, but was then replaced by the NRW-Liga, a new statewide league. W ...
also qualified. As every team was entitled to participate in local tournaments which qualified for the association cups, every team could in principle compete in the DFB-Pokal. Reserve teams and combined football sections were not permitted to enter, along with no two teams of the same association or corporation.


Draw

The draws for the different rounds were conducted as follows: For the first round, the participating teams were split into two pots of 32 teams each. The first pot contained all teams which qualified through their regional cup competitions, the best four teams of the 3. Liga, and the bottom four teams of the 2. Bundesliga. Every team from this pot was drawn to a team from the second pot, which contained all remaining professional teams (all the teams of the Bundesliga and the remaining fourteen 2. Bundesliga teams). The teams from the first pot were set as the home team in the process. The two-pot scenario was also applied for the second round, with the remaining 3. Liga and/or amateur team(s) in the first pot and the remaining Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga teams in the other pot. Once again, the 3. Liga and/or amateur team(s) served as hosts. This time the pots did not have to be of equal size though, depending on the results of the first round. Theoretically, it was even possible that there could be only one pot, if all of the teams from one of the pots from the first round had beat all the others in the second pot. Once one pot was empty, the remaining pairings were drawn from the other pot, with the first-drawn team for a match serving as hosts. For the remaining rounds, the draw was conducted from just one pot. Any remaining 3. Liga and/or amateur team(s) were the home team if drawn against a professional team. In every other case, the first-drawn team served as hosts.


Match rules

Teams met in one game per round. Matches took place for 90 minutes, with two halves of 45 minutes each. If still tied after regulation, 30 minutes of
extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...
was played, consisting of two periods of 15 minutes each. If the score was still level after this, the match was decided by a
penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...
. A coin toss would decide who took the first penalty. A maximum of nine players could be listed on the substitute bench, while a maximum of five substitutions were allowed. However, each team was only given three opportunities to make substitutions, with a fourth opportunity in extra time, excluding substitutions made at half-time, before the start of extra time and at half-time in extra time. From the round of 16 onward, a
video assistant referee The video assistant referee (VAR) is a Assistant referee (association football), match official in association football who assists the referee by reviewing decisions using video footage and providing advice to the referee based on those revi ...
was appointed for all DFB-Pokal matches. Though technically possible, VAR was not used for home matches of Bundesliga clubs prior to the round of 16 in order to provide a uniform approach to all matches.


Suspensions

If a player received five yellow cards in the competition, he was then suspended from the next cup match. Similarly, receiving a second yellow card suspended a player from the next cup match. If a player received a direct red card, they were suspended a minimum of one match, but the German Football Association reserved the right to increase the suspension.


Champion qualification

The winners of the DFB-Pokal earned automatic qualification for the group stage of next year's edition of the
UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...
. If they had already qualified for the
UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...
through position in the Bundesliga, then the spot would go to the team in sixth place, and the league's second qualifying round spot would go to the team in seventh placr. The winners also hosted the
DFL-Supercup The Franz Beckenbauer Supercup or ''German Super Cup'' is a one-off association football, football match in Germany that features the winners of the Bundesliga championship and the DFB-Pokal. The competition is run by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (E ...
at the start of the next season, and faced the champions of the previous year's
Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...
, unless the same team won the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal, completing a double. In that case, the runners-up of the Bundesliga would take the spot and host instead.


Schedule

All draws were held at the German Football Museum in
Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...
, on a Sunday evening at 18:00 after each round (unless noted otherwise). The draws were televised on ARD's ''
Sportschau ''Sportschau'' is a German sports magazine on broadcaster ARD, produced by WDR in Cologne. The magazine started in 1961. In its Saturday edition, the ''Sportschau'' shows a summary of the Bundesliga, whereas the Sunday edition reports on the l ...
'', broadcast on
Das Erste Das Erste (; "The First") is the flagship national television channel of the ARD (broadcaster), ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. ''Das Erste'' is jointly operated by the ARD (broadcaster)#Institutions and member org ...
. The rounds of the 2020–21 competition were scheduled as follows:


Matches

A total of sixty-three matches took place, starting with the first round on 14 August 2020 and culminating with the final on 22 May 2021 at the Olympiastadion in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
. Times up to 25 October 2020 and from 28 March 2021 are CEST (
UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. As standard time (year-round) Principal cities: Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Por ...
). Times from 26 October 2020 to 27 March 2021 are
CET CET or cet may refer to: Places * Cet, Albania * Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus * Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England Arts, entertainment, and media * Comcast En ...
(
UTC+1 +01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time * West Africa Time * Western European Summer Time **Brit ...
).


First round

The draw for the first round was held on 26 July 2020 at 18:30, with Heike Ullrich drawing the matches. As the winners of the Verbandspokal were not yet known, placeholders were used in the draw. Since
SV Rödinghausen SV Rödinghausen is a German association football club based in the town of Rödinghausen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club's greatest success has been to earn promotion to the tier four Regionalliga West in 2014. History For most of its hist ...
could still qualify as both the Westphalian Cup winner and the play-off winner at the time of the draw, the assignment of the two Westphalian teams required an additional draw after both competitions were completed. The second draw, which included
RSV Meinerzhagen Rasensportverein Meinerzhagen 1921 e.V. is a German football club from Meinerzhagen in North Rhine-Westphalia. Founded in 1921, the team plays in the Westfalenliga in the sixth tier of the German football league system. History The club was foun ...
and
SC Wiedenbrück SC Wiedenbrück is a German association football club from the city of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, North Rhine-Westphalia. The footballers are part of a sports club of some 1,150 members that also includes departments for dance, gymnastics, and table t ...
, took place at the DFB headquarters in
Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
on 26 August 2020, 10:45, with
Renate Lingor Renate Lingor (born 11 October 1975) is a retired female German international footballer, who played as a midfielder or forward. Club career Lingor began her career in 1981 with SV Blankenloch at the age of six, in 1983 she joined the youth t ...
drawing the matches. The thirty-two matches took place from 11 to 14 September, 15 October and 3 November 2020.


Second round

The draw for the second round was held on 8 November 2020 at 18:30, with
Inka Grings Inka Grings (born 31 October 1978) is a German former international Association football, footballer who played as a striker (association football), striker. She played sixteen years for FCR 2001 Duisburg before joining FC Zürich Frauen. She al ...
drawing the matches. It was originally scheduled for 18 October 2020 at 18:00, but was delayed due to the postponement of one first round match to November 2020. The sixteen matches took place from 22 to 23 December 2020 and from 12 to 13 January 2021.


Round of 16

The draw for the round of 16 was held on 3 January 2021 at 17:30, with
Sven Hannawald Sven Hannawald (; born 9 November 1974) is a German former ski jumper. Having competed from 1992 to 2004, his career highlight was winning the 2002 Four Hills Tournament, on that occasion becoming the first athlete to win all four events of said ...
drawing the matches. The eight matches took place from 2 to 3 February 2021.


Quarter-finals

The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 7 February 2021 at 18:30, with Boris Herrmann drawing the matches. The four matches took place from 2 to 3 March and 7 April 2021.


Semi-finals

The draw for the semi-finals was held on 7 March 2021 at 18:30, with Bärbel Wohlleben drawing the matches. The two matches took place on 30 April and 1 May 2021. ----


Final

The final took place on 13 May 2021 at the Olympiastadion in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
.


Top goalscorers

The following were the top scorers of the DFB-Pokal, sorted first by number of goals, and then alphabetically if necessary. Goals scored in penalty shoot-outs are not included.


Notes


References


External links

*
DFB-Pokal on kicker.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dfb-Pokal 2020-21 2020-21 2020–21 in German football cups