Football | DFB Cup: 1. FC Magdeburg travels to FC Bayern with conviction

Footballers and fans are looking forward to the journey from Magdeburg to Munich together. Photo: imago/Jan Huebner When Bastian Schweinsteiger drew the tickets for the second round of the cup at the beginning of September, the 2014 world champion made things exciting for his former club for a long time. It was only in the last of 16 matches that he fished the ball out of the drum with FC Bayern - and thus gave the Munich team a home game against 1. FC Magdeburg.

On the day of the draw, the people from Elbstadt were on a business trip to visit Hertha BSC. With the 2-1 win over FCM, the Old Lady from Berlin moved into first place in the 2nd Bundesliga. Now the Magdeburgers have to deal with the frontrunner from the upper house - the alpha animal of German football, which has also had the current world footballer Harry Kane in its ranks since Monday evening.

Petrik Sander and the Magdeburg footballers rarely have to deal with so many big shots from the football world. This may be why the FCM coach made several animalistic comparisons before the duel in the DFB Cup. The starting point? “It makes no sense to make an elephant out of the whole story: a lot has to come together for us to have a successful evening there,” says Sander. And the Quedlinburg native also found an animal analogy for his tactical approach. »If you fidget like a rabbit in front of a snake and say: When will it finally bite? Then it will happen that way," suspects the 65-year-old, who wants to give his footballers the following advice on the difficult path: stick to themselves, believe in themselves - without running into the Munich team's open knife.

The fact that 1. FC Magdeburg is already entering its fifth second division season in a row is anything but a given, as club president Jörg Biastoch, who has been in office since 2022, emphasizes again and again. His route for this season was correspondingly cautious: "It will be crucial this season that the team finds its feet quickly so that we can reach our goal - staying in the league - faster than was the case last season." Now a good quarter of the season has been completed, the FCM is fifth, only two points behind second place. And last Saturday, Sanders' ensemble swept Karlsruher SC off the pitch 6-1.

In everyday business, the club from the capital of Saxony-Anhalt is doing well - which further increases the enjoyment of the special date in Munich. »We have respect for Bavaria, but we also know what we can do. We have to believe and trust that we can play our game," said Felipe Chávez cheekily. The 19-year-old attacking midfielder, who made his Peruvian national team debut in a friendly against Chile a year ago, has been on loan from FC Bayern to Magdeburg since the summer.

They don't have any bad memories of FC Bayern in Magdeburg. After the FCM won the European Cup Winners' Cup in May 1974, six months later there was a duel with Munich in the round of 16 of the Master's Cup: 1. FC Magdeburg narrowly lost twice with 2:3 and 1:2. 26 years ago, FCM even managed a cup triumph over Munich. Their coach was Ottmar Hitzfeld when the great Bavarians – Champions League winners against Valencia six months later – lost 4-2 on penalties to the then fourth division club Magdeburg in the second round on November 1, 2000. At that time, Bastian Schweinsteiger was still playing in FC Bayern's B youth team.

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