Nuri Sahin and Julian Schuster celebrated successful coaching debuts at Borussia Dortmund and Freiburg respectively and were able to save the Bundesliga clubs from surprising defeats in the first round of the DFB Cup on Saturday.
Sahin’s Dortmund won comfortably 4-1 against fourth division club Phoenix Lübeck, Freiburg won 4-0 against third division club Osnabrück.
All of the other nine top teams that played on Friday and Saturday also progressed; the remaining seven will play on Sunday, Monday and later in the month.
Dortmund advances
Former Dortmund and Turkey midfielder Sahin took over from Edin Terzic in the summer and Dortmund quickly ensured that the match in front of 50,000 spectators in Hamburg was not a surprise. The match was played because the 1,500-seat Lübeck stadium did not meet the cup criteria.
Defender Waldemar Anton opened the scoring in the third minute from a Pascal Gross corner as two new players came together. Emre Can converted a penalty before Julian Brandt scored the third goal just before half-time.
Obina Iloka scored for Lübeck, who also hit the crossbar and the post, before Julien Duranville put an end to all doubts in the 62nd minute.
The post-strike era begins with a victory
Former captain Schuster made his Freiburg debut as the successor to Christian Streich, who ruled the team for twelve years and led it to the 2023 final.
Lucas Höler and Vincenzo Grifo scored in Osnabrück before the break and Junior Adamu scored a brace shortly before the end.
“We are very happy with the 4-0 result. That is not something to be taken for granted and I think that was noticeable. We are happy that we survived the opening phase without conceding a goal. Then we showed our efficiency and scored two goals,” said Schuster.
All Bundesliga teams win
Union Berlin, also with new coach Bo Svensson, won 1-0 against fourth division side Greifswald.
The 2022 and 2023 cup winners, RB Leipzig, beat third division side Rot-Weiss Essen 3-1, while Borussia Mönchengladbach won by the same score in Aue.
Heidenheim won 4-0 in Villingen and newly promoted Holstein Kiel beat Alemannia Aachen 3-2.
On Friday, record cup winners Bayern Munich beat second division side Ulm 4-0, while Hoffenheim, Mainz and newly promoted St. Pauli Hamburg also advanced.
The first round matches of defending champions and Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen and VfB Stuttgart were postponed until the end of August because they were playing for the German Supercup on Saturday evening.
Last year’s second division finalist, Kaiserslautern, also advanced with a 2-1 win in Ingolstadt.
