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The 2024–25
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 82nd 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 16 August 2024 with the first of six rounds and ended on 24 May 2025 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 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).
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 ...
were the defending champions, but they were eliminated by
Arminia Bielefeld DSC Arminia Bielefeld (; full name: ; commonly known as Arminia Bielefeld (), also known as ''Die Arminen'' or ''Die Blauen'' ), or just Arminia (), is a German sports club from Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia. Arminia is most well known as ...
in the semi-finals.
VfB Stuttgart Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart 1893 e. V. (), commonly known as VfB Stuttgart (), is a German professional sports club based in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. The club's Association football, football team is currently part of Germany's f ...
won a fourth title after defeating Bielefeld 4–2 in 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 ...
. As winners, Stuttgart earned automatic qualification to the 2025–26 UEFA Europa League league stage. They will also host the 2025 edition of the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup at the start of the next season, and will face the champions of the
2024–25 Bundesliga The 2024–25 Bundesliga was the 62nd season of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier men's Association football, football competition. The season began on 23 August 2024 and concluded on 17 May 2025. Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Bayer Leverkusen were the def ...
,
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, ...
.


Participating clubs

The following 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 was split into two paths: one for
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 spot rotated each season between the best-placed Westphalian 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 the best-placed amateur team of the
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 ...
. For the 2024–25 DFB-Pokal, this spot was awarded to a team from the Oberliga. 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 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 ...
were 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 decided 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.


International qualification

The winners of the DFB-Pokal earned automatic qualification for the league phase of next season'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 went to the team in sixth place, and the league's
UEFA Conference League The UEFA Conference League (UECL), usually known simply as the Conference League, is an annual football competition organised since 2021 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It is the thir ...
play-off round spot to the team in seventh place. The winners will also host the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup at the start of the next season, and will face 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 wins the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal, completing a double. In that case, the runners-up of the Bundesliga took the spot and hosted instead.


Schedule

All draws were generally held on a Sunday evening after each round (unless noted otherwise). The rounds of the 2024–25 competition were scheduled as follows:


Matches

''Times up to 27 October 2024 and from 30 March 2025 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 28 October 2024 to 29 March 2025 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 took place on 23 June 2024, with
Nils Petersen Nils Petersen (; born 6 December 1988) is a German former professional association football, footballer who played as a forward (association football), forward. He appeared in the 2016 Summer Olympics and remains the first and only German footbal ...
drawing the matches. Thirty of the thirty-two matches took place from 16 to 19 August 2024. The remaining two matches, involving the participants of the 2024 DFL-Supercup (played on 17 August), took place on 27 and 28 August 2024.


Second round

The draw took place on 1 September 2024, with Sonja Greinacher drawing the matches. The matches took place on 29 and 30 October 2024.


Round of 16

The draw took place on 3 November 2024, with and
Rudi Völler Rudolf "Rudi" Völler (; born 13 April 1960) is a German professional football manager and former player, who is currently the director of the Germany national team. In Germany, he is nicknamed "Tante Käthe" ("Aunt Kathy"), a name bestowed upon ...
drawing the matches. The matches took place on 3 and 4 December 2024.


Quarter-finals

The draw took place on 15 December 2024, with
Julian Köster Julian Köster (born 16 March 2000) is a German handball player for VfL Gummersbach and the Germany men's national handball team, German national team. Career Club career Having started at TuS SW Brauweiler, Köster completed his youth team ...
drawing the matches. The matches took place between 4 and 26 February 2025.


Semi-finals

The draw took place on 2 March 2025, with Gerald Asamoah drawing the matches. The matches took place on 1 and 2 April 2025.


Final

The final took place on 24 May 2025.


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 2024-24 2024–25 2024–25 in German football cups