Favorite wins in the cup: Dresden, Jena and Halle successful

In the end, despite all the rivalry, everyone agreed: Dynamo Dresden are deserved winners of the Saxony Cup. The 2-0 win after extra time against FC Erzgebirge Aue was the result of better reserves of strength. The two goals from Panagiotis Vlachodimos in his last game for Dresden came in the 109th and 116th minutes, when Aue had nothing left to counter. "We were pretty exhausted at the end. You could see that the lads didn't have too much left to give," said Aue goalkeeper and captain Martin Männel on MDR. And Dynamo coach Heiko Scholz emphasized: "You have to compliment both teams. But we had the better chances, so you can say we deserved to win."

Jena's gala performance brings 15th cup win

Coach Henning Bürger didn't quite know what to do with his feelings. On the one hand, he was delighted with his FC Carl Zeiss Jena's gala performance in the Thuringian Cup final. On the other hand, he felt for his son Luca, who played for ZFC Meuselwitz, who were completely overwhelmed and ultimately lost 4-0. "The lads played a match that was all of a piece, they were highly focused and scored two goals right at the start. They've earned a great couple of days," said the coach, before thinking about his son: "He's pretty down, very sad. I was a bit of a dad too. But you couldn't avoid it. It was clear that someone was really sad, and unfortunately that's him."

It was the game of Elias Löder. The top scorer in the regional league (25 goals) contributed three goals to the victory. "That's the icing on the cake, of course. But I would have been just as happy if we had won and I hadn't scored," said Löder, who credited everyone in the Jena team with a good performance that resulted in the 15th state cup victory, the fifth in a row.

Hallescher FC with a conciliatory end to the season

At least Hallescher FC had a conciliatory end to the state cup. But it didn't look like that until the 80th minute and a penalty saved by goalkeeper Sven Müller in the 4-2 win over Oberliga side VfB Germania Halberstadt. The unsettled relegated third-division side were chasing a deficit and had to be happy that the fifth-division side failed to take their chances. It was only when Jannes Vollert equalized in the 89th minute that the team from Halle regained their self-confidence. "It was all in it again. A lot of things went our way, which was symptomatic of the past seven or eight weeks," said outgoing coach Stefan Reisinger.

He expressly praised two-time goalscorer Erich Berko, who also provided the assist for the fourth goal. "I'm delighted for him. He had an easy time here, both mentally and privately. I'm happy that he made it possible for us to win here," said Reisinger.