By Canadian Press on May 24, 2025.
BERLIN (AP) — Four mistakes, four goals.
Stuttgart ruthlessly capitalized on errors in Arminia Bielefeld’s defense to win the German Cup with a 4-2 victory in the final on Saturday.
Enzo Millot scored twice and Germany forwards Nick Woltemade and Deniz Undav got the others as Stuttgart claimed its fourth German Cup win and the first since 1997.
Bielefeld, the third-division champion, was playing in the final for the first time as only the fourth representative from that division to ever reach German soccer’s end-of-season showpiece.
But there was no fairytale ending for the team’s American captain, Mael Corboz, after he helped the team knock out defending champion Bayer Leverkusen in the semifinals and a host of Bundesliga clubs en route to the final.
Substitute Julian Kania scored a late consolation goal, a minute before Josha Vagnoman’s own goal, to get the Bielefeld fans singing again before the end.
Both sets of supporters displayed huge choreographies before the match in front of 74,000 spectators at Berlin’s Olympiastadion, where they repeatedly ignored appeals to stop setting off pyrotechnics.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Ciarán Fahey, The Associated Press