Football: DFB Cup: Chaos club Kaiserslautern against Leverkusen’s miracle team

When your own club isn’t playing, sympathy in football often belongs to the outsiders. Small versus big: The DFB Cup often offers these duels – and they have been in the final for 13 years. This Saturday, the new German champions Bayer Leverkusen and second division team 1. FC Kaiserslautern will play for the 52 centimeter high brass trophy in the Berlin Olympic Stadium.

Shrunken favorite

The roles in the 81st cup final are clearly assigned: Even though Leverkusen lost a bit with the 3-0 defeat in the Europa League final against Atalanta Bergamo, they go into the game as big favorites. While Bayer remained unbeaten in the Bundesliga, Kaiserslautern fought to stay in league two until the end. The Palatinate team suffered 17 defeats. In their five cup games so far, they have defeated two lower-class teams, Rot-Weiß Koblenz and 1. FC Saarbrücken, two league rivals – Hertha BSC and 1. FC Nürnberg – and a first division team, the relegated 1. FC Köln. Accordingly, coach Friedhelm Funkel looks at the duel in Berlin: “We are the biggest outsiders in a final in the history of the cup.”

When it comes to the question of the favorability of the neutral audience, there are still a few things that point to Leverkusen. They have done a lot for this: A number of football fans are grateful to the Werkself, who are often ridiculed as brittle, for breaking FC Bayern’s eleven-year dominance. And Leverkusen not only scores points with the championship title, but above all with a miracle team and a likeable coach: Under Xabi Alonso, Bayer plays an enchanting ball and remained undefeated in 51 games.

Self-inflicted distress

The opponent has a so-called fireman on the sidelines. “Football just doesn’t let you go, and that’s nice,” Funkel said in December. In February, the 70-year-old returned to the training ground in Kaiserslautern – and ultimately led the FCK from relegation to 13th place. And with the semi-final win against Saarbrücken into the cup final. Actually a nice story. However, Funkel, who has now sat in the coaching bench in almost 900 games, only made one more comeback because 1. FC Kaiserslautern had once again gotten themselves into great trouble through their own fault.

After ninth place as a promoted team in the previous season, the club wanted to stabilize in the 2nd Bundesliga this season. The goal given was to secure a midfield position. Correspondingly disappointed and wounded, coach Dirk Schuster received his dismissal papers at the end of November: Kaiserslautern was in eleventh place, five points ahead of the relegation zone and five more points ahead of the first direct relegation spot. A wrong decision: Schuster’s successor Dimitrios Grammozis had to leave after six defeats in seven games. Firefighter Funkel took over.

The Lauter fans were also horrified at the time: Schuster was popular and good. And somehow he was also the promotion coach after the first fall into the third division in 2018. However, the FCK acted just as questionably in May 2022: Coach Marco Antwerp had led the team to third place and thus into relegation for promotion. But right before the games against Dynamo Dresden, Antwerp was fired. Things were going well then.

Myth and megalomania

Success has rarely proven the club right in recent decades. For a long time, 1. FC Kaiserslautern with its five world champions from 1954 around the legendary Fritz Walter was a German myth. That perhaps also explains the megalomania that has reigned on the Betzenberg for ages. The investor at the time, Falvio Becca, spoke of the “goal of the Champions League” in 2017. The club played in the 3rd league. The FCK had been a chaos club for a long time. In 2003, heavily in debt, he had to sell his stadium to the city of Kaiserslautern. The state repeatedly helped to save the club. The myth should live on.

The club lost a lot of sympathy four years ago. With debts of more than 20 million euros, 1. FC Kaiserslautern took advantage of the possibility of insolvency without consequences created by the DFB during the Corona period. Without deducting points or further penalties, the club rehabilitated itself at the expense of many others. For example, Dynamo Dresden had to forego a six-figure installment from the transfer of Lucas Röser to Kaiserslautern. And: Suddenly liquid again, the third division team later bought striker Terence Boyd – because he could offer more than Dresden. Six months later, the FCK shot into the third division in the relegation Dynamo.

Pressure from investors

A reasonably solid economy is currently only possible in Kaiserslautern with the help of two groups of investors. Their influence is great. Coach Schuster is said to have been a victim – because the only way to earn money is to be promoted to the 1st Bundesliga. FCK at least deserved a lot in the cup, a win in the final against Leverkusen and the resulting start in the Europa League would be a blessing. Kaiserslautern as the fifth lower-class German club to play internationally? A nice story, actually.