Pre-Match Report
Dortmund’s Cup opponent HEBC: A club that loves being the underdog
Purple and white are the colors of the club from the heart of the Hanseatic city, located between Sternschanze and Hoheluft. Angela Merkel was born here. On Tuesday, the club – which has been playing in the fifth-tier Oberliga Hamburg since the 2020–21 season and won the Hamburg Cup for the first time on May 23, 2026 – will move to the Volksparkstadion.
The HEBC started the Oberliga season with two wins and three losses, and was also eliminated in the first round of the association cup by Altona 93. The club has been accustomed to the underdog role for decades. The HEBC finished the previous Oberliga season in 13th place, 45 points behind champion ETSV. But in the cup, the team was on a roll in 2025–26: a 6-1 win over Viktoria Harburg, a 5-2 win over VfL Hammonia Hamburg, a 4-3 victory on penalty kicks against VfL Buchholz 08, an 8-0 win over SV West-Eimsbüttel, 1-0 against SV Nienstedten, 6-5 on penalty kicks against USC Paloma, and finally 5-1 in the final against SC Vorwärts-Wacker 04.
The club has produced one national team player (Thomas Wolter, a two-time champion with Werder Bremen) as well as a player who once laced up his cleats for BVB: Burghard Rylewicz scored five goals in eleven games during Borussia Dortmund’s first Bundesliga season.
For the Black and Yellows, the days when BVB was knocked out of the DFB Cup in the first round – such as against Fürth in 1990, Wattenscheid in 1996, the Stuttgart Kickers in 1999, and the Wolfsburg reserves in 2001 – are now long gone. Most recently, BVB lost 1-2 in the first round in 2005 to Eintracht Braunschweig, which had just been promoted from the second division at the time.
That was 21 years ago. Since that last first-round exit, the Borussians have reached the cup final seven times and won the title three times (2012, 2017, and 2021). The away game in Hamburg is set to be the first step on the road to Berlin.
Boris Rupert