Non- League and Underdogs: Do you know these five clubs from the German Cup?

Dortmund, German Football Museum, June 15, 2025. With great excitement, spectators and representatives of lower-tier clubs watched the DFB Cup first round draw. We present five of these amateur clubs who, around August 16, 2025, will take on the highly sought-after Bundesliga travel clubs such as Bayer Leverkusen, Eintracht Frankfurt, and Hamburger SV. 

The first round DFB Cup draw has always had cult status. When DFB match director Walter Baresel from Hamburg (“Mr. Baresel, please!”) commented on the draw with “This will be exciting,” or—part of the running joke—when it was checked whether the correct club names were really on the draw balls. 

It was not different this time. Only when SV Elversberg was drawn as the 64th and final club did the draw become official.

As every year, the draw brought “winners” from the amateur ranks, but also clubs that tried to mask their disappointment with their drawn opponent. “We’ll take it as it comes and look forward to a holiday in Lohne,” said former pro Uwe Möhrle, coach of fourth-tier side Blau-Weiß Lohne, on ZDF after his side was drawn against SpVgg Greuther Fürth—hardly a crowd-puller, with all due respect.

DFB Cup Participants by League: Four Oberliga Teams vs Bundesliga in Round 1

The participating amateur clubs range in league level up to the Oberliga (fifth tier).

Until May, SG Sonnenhof Großaspach played in the Oberliga. Now promoted to the Regionalliga, the Württemberg-based club that played in the 3rd division from 2014 to 2020, will face Bundesliga runners-up Bayer 04 Leverkusen. At their home ground, the originally named WirmachenDruck-Arena, cameras are likely to focus on the stands, where Großaspach’s most famous supporter, Schlager singer Andrea Berg, regularly cheers along. 

The “village club” from Großaspach even patented that nickname in 2016, back when it was the smallest municipality in German professional football. 

The regional sports club Eintracht from 1949 in Stahnsdorf, Brandenburg, Potsdam-Mittelmark district, will also challenge a former German Cup winner as an NOFV-South Oberliga club: 1. FC Kaiserslautern. 

The Brandenburg side will likely move their cup debut to the Karl-Liebknecht-Stadium in Potsdam. “I look forward to every Red Devil who makes this world trip,” said Stahnsdorf striker Matthias Steinborn.

Why not? DFB Cup football travel lives for these daring destinations. 
Two or more first-round participants come from Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, and Leipzig.

Fourth-tier Regionalliga side 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, who reached the Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1987 (0:1 against Ajax Amsterdam in Athens), and who are actually the more popular club from the city of Bach, will face FC Schalke 04—one of the competition’s most successful teams.

A match with upset potential: Schalke hasn’t advanced past round two since 2021. 

DFB Cup Lowest-League Participants: When Engers Swapped Home Advantage…

The lowest league represented in the 2025/2026 DFB Cup is the fifth-tier Oberliga. 
Two clubs from the Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar will take on Bundesliga giants in this eternal “David vs Goliath” duel. One of them is FV Engers 07, who will host five-time Cup winners (most recently in 2018) Eintracht Frankfurt. 

Engers is a lovable local club from Neuwied, playing on artificial turf at the Stadion am Wasserturm since 2017. However, like in the 2022/2023 season against Arminia Bielefeld (1:7), FV Engers is likely to play again at the Oberwerth Stadium in Koblenz—where they beat local side Rot-Weiß (2:0) on May 24, 2025, to win the Rhineland Cup. 

Fun fact: During the COVID year 2020, Engers swapped home rights with VfL Bochum—and lost 0:3 at the Vonovia Ruhrstadion. 

DFB Cup Lowest-Ranked Clubs: Facing HSV Again After 63 Years…

FK 03 Pirmasens, a traditional Palatinate club from the Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar, is taking part in the DFB Cup for the 19th time. 

“Die Klub,” as the team is affectionately called in the Pirmasens dialect, has an exciting Cup challenge against Bundesliga returnee Hamburger SV. 

Pirmasens stands for one of the Cup’s biggest sensations ever. On September 9, 2006, they beat Bundesliga runners-up Werder Bremen as a Regionalliga newcomer at home in the Framas Stadium (10,000 seats) in a penalty shootout (5:3 / 1:1 a.e.t.). “I guess I’m a cunning coach after all,” said legendary FKP manager Robert Jung, who is known for discovering Jürgen Klopp and Thomas “Tom” Dooley. The latter played for FKP from 1981 to 1983 and is even mentioned in the club anthem “Hey FKP.”

FK Pirmasens vs HSV already took place in 1958 and 1962 during the German Championship final rounds (played until the Bundesliga’s founding in 1963). Both matches were won by Hamburg: 2:1 and 6:3.