Even an own goal from 48 meters did not prevent the Stuttgart footballers from advancing in Tuesday’s round of 16 of the German Cup with second-division Paderborn. VfB turned the score around with two goals at the very end and won 2:1.
Paderborn knocked out Bundesliga side Bremen in the second round and could even think about the quarter-finals.
Against Stuttgart, he took the lead in the 4th minute when centre-back Konstantinos Mavropanos collected the ball after a throw-in and without looking, sent it past the keeper.
But Florian Müller did not wait for the pass directly to the goal and Paderborn scored a record.
As the German Football Association reported on Twitter, an own goal from longer distance has never been scored in a cup competition.
But Stuttgart did not have to regret the short-circuit in the end, because Gil Dias, who came to the club from Benfica Lisbon the day before the match, equalized in the 86th minute. Serhou Guirassy then decided the win in the fifth minute of regulation.
“Before the match, I talked about a magical evening and in the end it turned out to be a tragic evening. It’s a shame, promotion was close,” the DPA agency quoted Paderborn coach Lukas Kwasniok, who in 2020 reached the semi-finals with Saarbrücken, a participant in the fourth highest competition.
After progressing, the guests were already taking their own goal with aplomb. “This will not be forgotten easily. It was a complication, but now Konstantinos will have something to tell his grandchildren,” said the club’s sports director Fabian Wohlgemuth.
