Bayern begin cup defence with record run

With the 3-0 victory against VfB Stuttgart in May’s final at the Berlin Olympiastadion, FC Bayern ended a drought and finally brought the DFB Cup back to Munich after six years. Vincent Kompany’s side certainly won’t want to wait that long again for the next cup success and will be doing their best to defend their title in the competition for the fifth time in the club’s history, after 1966/67, 2005/06, 2013/14 and 2019/20. This mission begins in the first round at VfL Osnabrück on Wednesday night (20:45 CEST), with the Reds aiming to continue an impressive run.

It feels like a lifetime ago since Bayern last slipped up in the first round of the DFB Cup. Since the 1-0 defeat at TSV Vestenbergsgreuth in 1994, FCB have won their opening game 30 times in a row – a record in the competition.

However, the three previous cup encounters with Osnabrück have never been plain sailing. Three years after a 2-0 win at Bremer Brücke in the second round of the 2001/02 campaign, the men from Munich needed a last-minute winner from Roy Makaay at the same place to progress to the next round with a 3-2 victory. In the 1978/79 campaign, VfL actually pulled off a shock against Bayern as a second-tier side and won 5-4 in Munich in the round of 16.

1 stumble in 20 attempts - Bayern have been knocked out in just one of their last 20 DFB Cup games against teams from the second division: at Holstein Kiel in the second round in 2020/21.

2+ goals 16 times – In their last 16 cup ties against Bundesliga 2 clubs, FCB have always scored at least two goals. The last time they failed to do so was in the 1-0 win after extra time in the 2007/08 quarter-final against rivals 1860 Munich.

5 consecutive exits – Osnabrück have lost their last five matches against Bundesliga opponents – although they did force extra time in two of them (3-2 against Freiburg in 2021/22 and 3-1 against Köln in 2023/24).

32 games unbeaten – Bayern are unbeaten in their last 32 away games in domestic competition (Bundesliga, DFB Cup, Supercup), with 26 wins and six draws. The last defeat on the road came at Mainz (2-1) in the league in December 2024.

10 goals last season –Harry Kane hit 10 goals in the previous DFB Cup campaign. It’s 49 years since anyone managed to score that many goals in the competition: in 1976/77, Gerd Müller registered 11 and Dieter Müller even plundered 14.

6 in a row – Kane has also found the net in each of his last six cup outings. That’s the most since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang netted in seven consecutive cup games for Dortmund from 2014 to 2016.

304 minutes – Bayern have kept clean sheets in their last three cup matches, going 304 minutes without conceding in the competition.

3 goalscorers – FCB won the 2025/26 DFB Cup with only three different goalscorers (Kane, Michael Olise and Luis Díaz) – that’s only happened once before since the Bundesliga was formed. In fact, in the 1968/69 season, Bayern had just two goalscorers: Gerd Müller (7 goals) and Rainer Ohlhauser (1).