Matches of the month: DFB Cup twice in February
Werkself DFB Cup thrillers, one in 2003, one in 2018…
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It's Wednesday, 25 February 2003. The Bayer 04 team, badly shaken in that season, travel to the scene of the nightmare for a DFB Cup quarter-final tie – Unterhaching. SpVgg Unterhaching play in the Bavaria Regional League – 20 years ago one of the different third divisions, as the third division as we know it now did not exist back then. In spite of undersoil heating, the pitch is covered in snow and a typical cup tie develops with it snowing throughout the game. The fortunate 1-0 half-time lead for the Werkself from a goal scored by the Brazilian Franca is cancelled out straight after the restart by Unterhaching but the captain Carsten Ramelow restores the lead promptly from a corner. The Regional League side equalise again after the hour mark.
The game goes into extra time and then penalties. Goalkeeper Jörg Butt is the hero. After the first eight penalties are scored, he saves the fifth Unterhaching spot-kick from Omodiagbe and then scores himself to make it 7-6 for Bayer 04 Leverkusen. The semi-final is against Bayern and that ends in a 3-1 defeat.
2018: Bellarabi winner in extra time
15 years later, on 6 February 2018, a quarter-final against Werder Bremen at the BayArena. Click here for article and TV highlights
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