It is one of Bayern Munich’s first English Weeks of the season as they take on VfL Osnabrück in the DFB-Pokal just five days after beating VfB Stuttgart 5-1 at the Allianz Arena in their Bundesliga opener for the season. While it’s not a traditional English Week, per se, given that there’s five days in between the two matches, Osnabrück could prove to be a tricky test for the German Rekordmeister as Vincent Kompany will also more than likely make rotations to his starting eleven.
The magic of the
cup has certainly gotten the better of Bayern in recent season’s past, but they finally got back on their perch last season, beating Stuttgart in the final in Berlin. For Bayern, that had been their first time back in the Pokal final since 2020 under Hansi Flick when they bested Bayer Leverkusen at the Olympiastadion before going on to claim the historic Sextuple. Prior to last season’s final, there had been four recent early exits for Bayern; the second-round exit to Holstein Kiel in 2020/21, the second-round exit to Borussia Mönchengladbach in 2021/22, the round of 16 exit to Leverkusen 2024/25 in the match where Manuel Neuer was sent off, and the second-round exit at the hands of FC Saarbrücken in the 2023/24 season.
As such, Osnabrück manager Timo Schutz knows the Pokal can produce moments of magic and he’s remaining hopeful for his side’s chances against Bayern on Wednesday.
“It’s the DFB Pokal, it has its own rules. We want to reach the second round, even against Bayern Munich. The Bremer Brücke is a very special stadium. I know the odds probably aren’t in our favor, but anything is possible in the DFB Pokal. Bayern Munich won it last year; but in the six years prior, they only reached the quarterfinals at best. The game starts at 0-0, we’re playing eleven against eleven. We’ll see what happens,” Schultz told Sport1 ahead of Bayern coming to town (via @iMiaSanMia).
While Schultz has every bit of hope, he’ll still approach the match with realism and pragmatism, knowing that Bayern is likely to have the lion’s share of possession and that his side will have to wait for their chances to break forward, needing to do so bravely. “I fully expect Bayern to have more possession than we do. I also fully expect us to have to defend our own box more often. Nevertheless, we will also have to play bravely, including when we have the ball, in order to create the chances we need if we want to win the game. I think we have the quality to do that as well. That will be our approach: to keep them occupied with the ball too, rather than simply relying on transition phases. But, of course, Bayern have absolute dominance in around 80 percent of their games internationally, and domestically it feels like 90%. And in the DFB-Pokal against a second-division side, perhaps even a few percentages more,” he stressed.
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