Cup fiascos: Hoffenheim always seemed strangely cold toward what Germans call the shortest road to Europe, the DFB-Pokal. Since their Bundesliga promotion in 2008, the club never went beyond the quarter-finals. From 2017 to 2019, they went out in the second round three times in a row.
Their last place among the final eight came in 2014/15, when they only lost 3–2 after extra time away to Dortmund.