German Cup: Hoffenheim out, Dortmund scrape through
December 22, 2020Hoffenheim suffered a shock defeat in the German Cup on Tuesday night, losing on penalties to 2. Bundesliga side Greuther Fürth.
Andrej Kramaric's early strike appeared to put hosts Hoffenheim on the path to victory but Fürth put their noses in front through goals from Sebastian Ernst and Marco Meyerhofer.
Despite Hoffenheim levelling through Kevin Akpoguma to make it 2-2, Fürth could have won it in the final minute of normal time when Hoffenheim's Ryan Sessegnon brought down Branimir Hrgota in the box — but Paul Seguin missed from the spot kick.
Penalties followed a goalless extra time, with Hoffenheim's Kevin Vogt, Melayro Bogarde and Kasim Adams missing their spot kicks to open the door for a famous Fürth win.
Dortmund do enough
Borussia Dortmund staggered into the next round after a functional if not fantastic performance against second-tier opposition Eintracht Braunschweig.
Mats Hummels put Dortmund ahead on 12 minutes with his fourth goal of the season and they could only relax in stoppage time when Jadon Sancho struck, securing the win in Edin Terzic's third game in charge as Dortmund's interim coach.
Schalke get rare win, favorites through
Schalke may not have won in the Bundesliga for 29 games, but they found the winning formula in the Cup, winning 3-1 against Ulm.
Suat Serdar opened the scoring for Schalke, whose only other win this season was also in the Cup against Schweinfurt. Benito Raman added two more for Schalke before Johannes Reichert's consolation for Ulm from the spot.
"We reached the next round and that's the most important," Schalke interim coach Huub Stevens said. "It's important to finally achieve another victory."
Elsewhere, there were wins for RB Leipzig, who won 3-0 at Augsburg courtesy of goals from Willi Orban, Yussuf Poulsen and Angelino, and Cologne, who edged out Osnabrück 1-0 through Anthony Modeste's strike just before half time.
Borussia Mönchengladbach made light work of ten-man Elversberg, winning 5-0 on the road after goals from Hannes Wolf, Laszio Benes, Lars Stindl, Patrick Herrmann and a Julio Villalba penalty.
Darmstadt also advanced to the next round with a 3-0 win at Dynamo Dresden, while Paderborn held on for a surprise 3-2 win at Bundesliga high-flyers Union Berlin.