
That was the outcome of the draw held at the German Football Museum in Dortmund on Sunday evening 29 May, broadcast live on the ARD Sportschau. The draw was made by former player Kevin Großkreutz and DFB vice president Peter Frymuth.
Simon Rolfes, sporting director: "An interesting draw. Elversberg have just been promoted to the third division and will be in euphoric mood just because of that. We want to make amends for the disappointing performance in the competition last season. That means taking the first round match very seriously and obviously wanting to win it."
The 36 professional teams from the Bundesliga and the second division are joined by the four best teams from the third division last season – FC Magdeburg, Eintracht Braunschweig, FC Kaiserslautern and TSV 1860 Munich. In addition there are 21 state cup winners from the lower leagues and one team from each of the three state associations with the highest membership in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony in the competition.
As Bayern Munich (champions of Germany) and RB Leipzig (DFB Cup winners) meet in the DFL Supercup on 30 July, the first-round matches for those two clubs will be played on 30/31 August. The second round is set for 18/19 October 2022. The Round of 16 will be on 31 January/1 February and 7/8 February 2023. The quarter-final ties are planned for 4/5 April 2023, the semi-finals on 2/3 May 2023. The final will be played on 3 June 2023.
We will keep you updated here at bayer04.de as soon as the match dates are confirmed and ticket details are available.
DFB Cup first round ties:
SSV Jahn Regensburg vs FC Köln
FV Engers 07 vs DSC Arminia Bielefeld
VfB Lübeck vs FC Hansa Rostock
FC Kaan-Marienborn vs FC Nürnberg
TSV Schott Mainz vs Hannover 96
TSG Neustrelitz vs Karlsruher SC
Teutonia Ottensen vs RB Leipzig
Dynamo Dresden vs VfB Stuttgart
Viktoria Berlin vs VfL Bochum 1848
Chemnitzer FC vs FC Union Berlin
SV 07 Elversberg vs Bayer 04 Leverkusen
BSV Rehden vs SV Sandhausen
FC Einheit Wernigerode vs SC Paderborn 07
SV Rödinghausen vs TSG 1899 Hoffenheim
FV Illertissen vs FC Heidenheim
Kickers Offenbach vs Fortuna Düsseldorf
Eintracht Braunschweig vs Hertha Berlin
1860 Munich vs Borussia Dortmund
FC Kaiserslautern vs SC Freiburg
SV Oberachern vs Borussia Mönchengladbach
FC Ingolstadt 04 vs SV Darmstadt 98
SV Waldhof Mannheim vs Holstein Kiel
TuS Blau-Weiß Lohne vs FC Augsburg
SV Straelen vs FC St. Pauli
SpVgg Bayreuth vs Hamburg SV
FC Erzgebirge Aue vs FSV Mainz 05
Energie Cottbus vs Werder Bremen
Bremer SV vs FC Schalke 04
Carl Zeiss Jena vs VfL Wolfsburg
Stuttgarter Kickers vs SpVgg Greuther Fürth
FC Viktoria Köln vs Bayern Munich
FC Magdeburg vs Eintracht Frankfurt

Strengthening the Bayer 04 Leverkusen youth teams: Konstantinos Kotsifakis will join the Werkself from Bundesliga 2 club Hertha Berlin for the 2026/27 season, where he will be a permanent member of the Leverkusen U19 coaching set-up. The German-Greek will also take on an operational role in coaching the Bayer 04 Future Team. The 29-year-old was most recently head coach of the U17s at Hertha Berlin.
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Opening opponents, derby weekends, the opponents in the season finale: This information and more will be available to Bayer 04 fans on Thursday, 2 July, when the 2026/27 Bundesliga fixture list is published.
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Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personal Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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