Why was there a Division 5 club from Hamburg in the first round? I was under the impression that only Oberliga and up were in the DFB Pokal. And is there anything preventing a club from having its professional and amateur sides face each other in a Cup game? Thanks in advance.
I think it was Paloma (Hamburg), I guess they must have won the regional cup(?) It allways can happen, that the profs face the amateurs. I think it happened last year to VfB Stuttgart...
Only Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga clubs have a guaranteed spot for the next DFB cup (so, the clubs relegating from BL2 don't have to qualify, while the ones promoting from D3 to BL2 are not necessarily qualified). The D3 and lower clubs have to qualify in a cup competition of their association - and the participants of this competition are determined by county cups (e.g. two teams of the Gütersloh County Cup qualify for the Westfalia Cup; two teams of the Westfalia Cup qualify for the DFB Cup) whereas D3 clubs are seeded for the cup competition of their association. I think it happened once or twice that a pro club met its own reserves. Didn't make too much sense as the reserves never were allowed to win. If I'm not mistaken they changed this rule, so that now indeed a pro club can not meet the own reserves anymore.