Alexander Nollenberger has turned 1. FC Magdeburg’s DFB-Pokal tie against Bayern München into something personal. Ahead of the 2. Runde meeting on Wednesday at 20.45 Uhr in the Allianz Arena in München, he called it a “kleiner Kindheitstraum” and at the same time a “Monsteraufgabe” for his side.
That mix of excitement and realism explains why the fixture is drawing attention now. It is not just a cup match on the calendar. For Nollenberger, it is a return to the club he supported as a boy and later joined in 2018, when he played for Bayern’s second team until 2020. The game will be shown on ARD and Sky, which only adds to the scale of the night.
Nollenberger said the scene still feels unreal because he once imagined exactly this kind of stage while playing football in his Heimatdorf with his friends. “Mit acht, neun oder zehn Jahren habe ich noch in meinem Heimatdorf Fußball gespielt und mich – zusammen mit meinen Kumpels – in große Arenen teleportiert. Und jetzt, einige Jahre später, darf ich es wirklich selbst erleben. Deswegen ist es schon Wahnsinn”, he said. He also made clear why the fixture matters to him in a very direct way: “Ein solches Spiel, Flutlicht, 20.45 Uhr in der Allianz Arena in München, ist vor allem für mich als Bayer etwas ganz Besonderes.”
The admiration, though, comes with a hard edge. Nollenberger called Bayern München “eine der besten Mannschaften der Welt” and said they are “einfach sehr beeindruckend” right now. He knows the scale of the task from both sides. He grew up in the Allgäu, was born in Memmingen, and said he was a Bayern fan from an early age — even recalling that he was given a Bayern-Schnuller when he was one or two years old. His time there was not straightforward, which is why he described it as “keine einfache Zeit,” even if he still remembers the Audi-Cup-Finale in front of 60.000 spectators and the chance to train and play with Ribéry and Robben as the biggest thing from that period.
Magdeburg’s hope is simple enough to state and difficult to execute: stay alive long enough to make the favorite uncomfortable. Nollenberger said the club believes there is a chance, even against a team he sees as one of the best in the world. That is the whole shape of Wednesday’s match — a childhood dream standing beside a task almost too large for one night, with Magdeburg needing its best version to make the dream last beyond kickoff.
