The DFB-Pokal Frauen is the main national women's football cup competition in Germany, thus the female counterpart to the

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considered ...

. It was created in 1980, and since 1991 includes Eastern teams as well. The most recent champions are

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg () or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of W ...

(five consecutive titles).

FFC Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt is a German women's association football club based in Frankfurt. Its first team currently plays in the German top flight, Frauen-Bundesliga. From 1998 to 2020, the club was known as 1. FFC Frankfurt. Eintracht have won sev ...

has won the most titles with nine. The final has, with the exception of the 1983 final, always been held on the same day prior to the men's final. Since 1985 the final has thus been held in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

. Only in 1983, it was held in the city of Frankfurt. This routine changed in 2010 when the finale was the DFB gave the final to the city of

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

. It ever stayed in the city and was held at the RheinEnergieStadion. The final usually takes place on a weekend or holiday in early May, independently from the men's finale, in order to gain more attention.

Format

Participation

All clubs from the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...

and the 2nd Bundesliga are allowed to compete in the cup as are the clubs which gained promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga. Also the winners of the regional cup competitions compete in the cup. As an exception to these rules, clubs' second teams are not allowed to participate in the DFB-Pokal. When a second team wins its regional cup, that team's regional association may send another team to the DFB-Pokal only if the cup winning second team has not also achieved promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga.

Seeding

Of the qualified teams, not all have to compete in the first round. Exactly 32 teams have to compete in the second round of the tournament, so in the first round the number of matches is determined by the number of excess teams, resulting in one match for each team after the 32nd. The teams that do not have to compete in the first round are the best finishers from the previous Bundesliga season, the number again determined by the number of entrants to the tournament. The pairings for round one, two, and three are not entirely random as there is a commission allocating the clubs to two or four groups as they see fit. These groups correspond with the regional provenance of the clubs. In the third round the commission can decide not to allocate the contestants to any groups. Within those groups the clubs are again separated, this time depending on the league they play in. For the draw, clubs from the Bundesligas are put in one pot and the rest in a second pot. Non-Bundesliga clubs automatically have home advantage against clubs from the Bundesligas.

Match rules

All games are held over two 45-minute halves with the winner advancing to the next round. In case of a draw, the game gets an extended by two 15-minute halves. If the score is still level after 120 minutes the winner is decided by

penalty shootout The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

. In the final no

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only ...

is added in case of a draw after 90 minutes, instead the penalty shootout follows immediately.

Winners

Before the

reunification of Germany German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

the cup competition included teams from

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

only.

Winners by team

(*) Note: Runner-up of VfL Wolfsburg as VfR Eintracht Wolfsburg

References

External links

*
List of Cup Finals at rsssf.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dfb-Pokal Frauen ger Women's football competitions in Germany Recurring sporting events established in 1980 3