On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Round of 16 matches in the DFB-Pokal will take place. Normally, four matches kick off at 6:00 PM, with two more on Wednesday as usual at 8:45 PM. But today, two of the encounters, including the cup thriller between Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen, will exceptionally start at 9:00 PM.
The reason: At the same time, the women’s national team is playing the second leg of the Women’s Nations League final against Spain in Madrid — starting at 6:30 PM. There was a risk of overlap with the cup match if the women’s game were to go into extra time. Since both the women’s international match and the cup game will be broadcast live on free TV by ‘ARD’, the kickoff was postponed by 15 minutes as a precaution.
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By the way, this isn’t the first time this season that BVB has been affected by an unusual kickoff time. In the second round against Eintracht Frankfurt, the match was also scheduled later than usual — back then, it started at 6:30 PM instead of the usual 6:00 PM slot. The reason then was also the parallel match of the women’s national team.
This time, then: first the women, then BVB — and deliberately at 9:00 PM, so that the TV broadcast of both matches can be properly planned.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
📸 INA FASSBENDER – AFP or licensors