Before the cup tie: Kovac on favouritism, dominance and rotation | OneFootball

Situation

Two first-round cup matches still need to be played: because Borussia Dortmund and FC Bayern Munich faced each other in the Supercup on the original cup weekend, both clubs are now making up their first-round ties. For BVB, that currently means Hamburg week: after the 2-0 win at home against Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga opener on Saturday, the team is now heading north. Dortmund will face HEBC at HSV’s Volksparkstadion. “That tends to help the top-flight team more than a fifth-division team,” says BVB head coach Niko Kovac about the match in the stadium, which holds around 57,000 spectators. The Oberliga club’s home ground, Professor-Reinmüller-Platz, has room for 2,500 fans. “We are the favorites, we want to go through,” Kovac makes clear. “We will have a lot of possession, a lot of dominance. The opponent will sit deep and try to create something through counterattacks or set pieces. It’s up to us to turn the game our way as quickly as possible so that we can advance to the next round.”

Squad

Niko Kovac will rotate in the cup match, Dortmund’s head coach has announced. One player can already be certain of his place in the lineup. There is also news on the injured Giannis Konstantelias. Read more here:

Opposition

Hamburg’s Eimsbüttel district is preparing for the biggest match in HEBC’s club history: “Eimsbüttel is purple!” and “Football’s coming Eimsbüttel” can be seen around the neighborhood. Local businesses are supporting the football club, and the district office lights up a purple heart on its facade every evening.

After seven wins in seven matches, the club won the Hamburg Cup for the first time in May 2026 and qualified for the first round of the DFB-Pokal. Defending the title is no longer possible: this season, HEBC was already knocked out at the opening stage of the Hamburg state cup. In the Oberliga, the team has two wins and three defeats after five games. But the focus is naturally on the DFB-Pokal clash now: “We want to bring as much of what we can do onto the pitch as possible and maybe make the stadium gasp once or twice. Then we’ll see what falls off the truck,” coach Philipp Obloch told NDR. (More on the opposition: A club that loves the underdog role) One special detail: for several HSV employees who also play for HEBC, it is BVB week. On Saturday they were in Dortmund for work, and on Tuesday they will face the Black and Yellows.

Cup record

For HEBC, this is its second appearance in the national cup competition. The Hamburg club had already taken part in 1935, in the first edition of what was then the Tschammerpokal — as one of 62 clubs. Those teams had come through several qualifying rounds from a field of more than 4,000 sides. In the first round, they were knocked out by local rivals Eimsbütteler TV after a 7-0 defeat.

Borussia Dortmund first took part in the national cup competition in the 1936/37 season — the current campaign is already the club’s 68th participation. BVB has won the title five times, and the club has reached the final five more times.Christina Reinke

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.