Bayern set the benchmark, but the cup has already delivered surprises
Bayern Munich arrive as defending DFB Cup champions after winning the trophy for a 21st time last season. Their 6-1 second-round win over Magdeburg underlined the gap a top side can create when it takes a cup tie seriously: Bayern advanced with a decisive scoreline, leaving little room for the kind of late drama that defines the competition’s less predictable matches. That result makes the holders look formidable, though one emphatic win can’t settle the question of how they’ll handle tougher opposition later in the tournament.
The wider second-round picture is less comfortable for favorites. Dortmund edged Werder Bremen 3-2, Freiburg beat Wolfsburg by the same score, and Holstein Kiel needed penalties to get past Hoffenheim after a 1-1 draw. The margins matter: in a knockout match, a narrow lead offers little protection, and one difficult spell can decide whether a strong league side advances or goes home. Cologne’s 5-0 win over Union Berlin stands out in the other direction, while Dynamo Dresden’s 2-0 defeat of Schalke gives the round one of its clearest upsets.
This is more significant than it looks. The cup’s early rounds don’t just test squad quality; they test whether a team can manage a one-off match when the usual league rhythm offers no second chance. And yet, the results also show that not every close game signals a wider weakness. Cup ties are small samples, and a single scoreline can say more about one evening than about a club’s full season.
Second-round results
Tuesday 27 October
Bochum 0-2 Mainz
Borussia Dortmund 3-2 Werder Bremen
Borussia Mönchengladbach 2-0 Karlsruhe
Cologne 5-0 Union Berlin
Elversberg 0-2 Darmstadt
Hamburg 1-3 Eintracht Frankfurt
Rot-Weiss Essen 1-2 RB Leipzig
Sonnenhof Großaspach 2-4 Augsburg
Wednesday 28 October
Freiburg 3-2 Wolfsburg
Dynamo Dresden 2-0 Schalke
Paderborn 0-1 VfB Stuttgart
Jeddeloh II 0-2 Hertha Berlin
Holstein Kiel 1-1 Hoffenheim (aet, Kiel win 4-3 on pens)
Hannover 0-2 Kaiserslautern
Bayer Leverkusen 5-2 Nuremberg
Bayern Munich 6-1 Magdeburg
First-round scorelines show the cup’s range
Some first-round ties were routine wins for top-flight sides; others demanded penalties or ended with a lower-profile club advancing. Eintracht Frankfurt’s 11-0 win over St. Tönis and Mainz’s 9-0 victory over Krieschow show how sharply the gulf can appear in the scoreline. But those routs share the same opening round with Rot-Weiss Essen’s 2-0 win over St. Pauli and Jeddeloh’s 5-2 defeat of Heidenheim.
Those results make the cup hard to read as a simple ranking of teams. A favorite can turn a mismatch into a comfortable night, while a single tie can expose how little the league table matters once the match is reduced to one result. Sonnenhof Großaspach’s penalty win over Arminia Bielefeld, after a 2-2 draw, is a clear example of the pressure that can build when neither side settles the contest in normal time. If you're tracking potential challengers, the early rounds are a reminder that a route to the final can become complicated long before the biggest names meet.
There’s a useful distinction here: a surprise result doesn’t automatically make the winner a title contender. It does show that the favorite’s margin for error is thin. For smaller clubs, that possibility is part of the appeal; for the established sides, it means the first task is simply to get through.
First-round results
Friday 21 August
Preußen Münster 1-2 Karlsruhe
Waldhof Mannheim 0-1 Kaiserslautern (aet)
St. Tönis 0-11 Eintracht Frankfurt
Hansa Rostock 0-4 VfB Stuttgart
Saturday 22 August
Energie Cottbus 0-2 Augsburg
Wehen Wiesbaden 0-4 Bayer Leverkusen
Erzgebirge Aue 0-4 Hoffenheim
Viktoria Cologne 1-1 Nuremberg (aet, Nuremberg win 5-4 on pens)
Saarbrücken 1-1 Hertha Berlin (aet, Hertha win 4-2 on pens)
Duisburg 1-3 Elversberg
Lüneburger Hansa 0-3 Werder Bremen
Hemelingen 1-9 Hannover
Sonnenhof Großaspach 2-2 Arminia Bielefeld (aet, Sonnenhof win 3-0 on pens)
1860 Munich 0-2 Holstein Kiel
Eintracht Trier 0-6 RB Leipzig
Sunday 23 August
Jeddeloh 5-2 Heidenheim
Greuther Fürth 1-2 Bochum
Westfalia Rhynern 0-6 Dynamo Dresden
Schott Mainz 0-5 Borussia Mönchengladbach
Eintracht Braunschweig 2-4 Union Berlin
Bahlinger 0-4 Magdeburg
Krieschow 0-9 Mainz
Carl Zeiss Jena 1-2 Darmstadt
Fortuna Düsseldorf 1-5 Freiburg
Phönix Lübeck 2-4 Paderborn
Rot-Weiss Essen 2-0 St. Pauli
Altglienicke 3-3 Wolfsburg (aet, Wolfsburg win 6-5 on pens)
Verl 0-3 Hamburg
Würzburger Kickers 1-2 Cologne
Hallescher FC 2-5 Schalke (aet)
Tuesday 1 September
Hamburg-Eimsbütteler 0-5 Borussia Dortmund
Wednesday 2 September
Dates ahead
The second round took place on 27 and 28 October 2026, leaving the surviving clubs to turn their attention to the last 16 in December. The schedule then spreads the quarter-finals across two February windows before the semi-finals in April. That spacing gives the competition a clear rhythm, but the draw and the demands of each tie will shape how manageable the route looks for each club.
The final is scheduled for 29 May 2027 at Berlin’s Olympiastadion. A destination is fixed; the contenders are not. Until then, each round will reduce the field and raise the cost of a mistake, with penalties and narrow scorelines already showing how little separates advancement from elimination in some ties.
2026/27 key dates
First round: 21–24 August and 1–2 September 2026
Second round: 27–28 October 2026
Round of 16: 1–2 December 2026
Quarter-finals: 2–3 and 9–10 February 2027
Semi-finals: 20–21 April 2027
Final: 29 May 2027 at the Olympiastadion in Berlin
What the results suggest from here
The early rounds offer two competing signals. Bayern and several other favorites have advanced with comfortable wins, while the defeats of Heidenheim, St. Pauli, Schalke and Wolfsburg underline that status doesn’t guarantee safety in a knockout tie. The numbers here are underwhelming as a predictor of what comes next: results can identify who remains in the competition, but they can’t tell us how the next draw will unfold.
If you're working in this space, the useful read is in the variety of paths through the rounds. Some clubs have had to survive extra time or penalties; others have progressed with room to spare. That difference may matter as the schedule advances, though the results alone don’t establish how any team will respond. Here's the thing: the cup rewards the side that handles the match in front of it. Everything else is conjecture.
And that’s the part most people overlook: a knockout cup can make a single result feel definitive, even when it offers only a narrow view of a team. The next round will provide another test, not a final verdict. For now, Bayern have set the scoring benchmark, while the rest of the field has made clear that the route to Berlin won’t be uniform.