Hamburger SV at home in the Pokal

Just before SC’s Bundesliga game at FC Bayern kicked off on Sunday evening, the draw for the second round of the DFB-Pokal took place at the German Football Museum in Dortmund.

The draw was conducted by the DFB’s vice-president Peter Frymuth and Sonja Greinacher, an Olympic gold medallist in 3×3 basketball in Paris. There were 32 teams in the hat and just three teams in pot 1: Arminia Bielefeld, Dynamo Dresden (both third division) and Kickers Offenbach (fourth division).

The seventh team to be drawn were SC Freiburg, and Greinacher pitted Julian Schuster’s men against Bundesliga 2’s Hamburger SV. HSV are seventh after four matchdays with seven points on the board so far. Steffen Baumgart’s side won 7-1 in the first round at fourth-tier SV Meppen. SC beat VfL Osnabrück of the third division 4-0.

The last time the two teams met in the DFB-Pokal was a memorable one for SC. On 19th April 2022, Freiburg won 3-1 at a sold-out Volksparkstadion to reach the final of the competition for the first time in the club’s history. Nils Petersen, Nicolas Höfler and Vincenzo Grifo got the goals on that occasion. Having already played VfL Osnabrück in round one, the draw has now pitted the club against another opponent from that memorable 2021/22 campaign.

The second round of the DFB-Pokal will take place on Tuesday, 29th and Wednesday, 30th October, with eight games each on both days. Exact dates and times will follow in due course.