Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.
Borussia Dortmund will visit fifth-tier HEBC in the first round of the DFB-Pokal, and the amateur club’s head coach Philipp Obloch is simply aiming to “make the stadium gasp once or twice.”
The Hamburg-based club, who finished 13th in the Oberliga Hamburg last season, will look to cause one of the biggest upsets in German football history on Tuesday.
They welcome Niko Kovac’s Bundesliga giants to the 2,500-capacity Professor-Reinmuller-Platz, with a place in the third round of the domestic cup at stake.
Dortmund last failed to get beyond the first round of the DFB-Pokal in 2005-06, when they lost 2-1 to Eintracht Braunschweig.
They fell to Wolfsburg in the second round in 2024-25, but 14 of the last 15 seasons have seen them reach at least the round of 16.
And while Obloch knows a giant-killing is extremely unlikely for the part-timers, he hopes they can give the home fans something to get excited about.
“We want to bring as much of what we’re capable of onto the field as possible, and maybe we can make the stadium gasp once or twice. Then, we’ll see what happens,” coach Philipp Obloch told NDR.
“For us, it’s first and foremost about enjoying the game and soaking it all up. We’re completely distancing ourselves from the result for the time being.”
The Opta supercomputer assigns Dortmund an 83% chance of victory inside 90 minutes, with HEBC assigned an 11.2% win probability and a 5.8% chance of forcing extra time.
Dortmund opened their Bundesliga campaign with a 2-0 win over Hamburg on Saturday, marking the 12th straight season in which they have won their opening home game.
Football is beautiful. pic.twitter.com/79TeZFOB8J
— Borussia Dortmund (@BlackYellow) August 31, 2026
And Kovac wants to continue the momentum from that victory by establishing their dominance early on against HEBC.
“We’re the favourites and we want to advance,” Kovac said. “We’ll have a lot of possession and dominate the game.
“The opponent will sit deep and try to create chances on the counter-attack or from set pieces.
“It’s up to us to take control of the game as quickly as possible so we can advance to the next round.”
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