Bayern Munich have been drawn to face Bayer Leverkusen in the semi finals of the DFB-Pokal. The other semi final match-up will see Eintracht Frankfurt take on Schalke. The two encounters are set to take place on April 17th and 18th. Bayern will travel to the BayArena, where they’ve already recorded a 3-1 victory on match day 18 in the Bundesliga.

Slightly contrasting routes to the semi finals

En route to the semi finals, Bayern have already ousted strong Bundesliga opposition in both RB Leipzig in the 2nd round, and then Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16, two of the strongest contenders to go the distance in the competition. In fact, Leipzig and Dortmund have been the only two sides capable of scoring against Bayern in the entire competition thus far, having each scored once in their respective matches against the semi-finalists.

With wins against (chronologically) Chemnitzer FC, Leipzig, Dortmund, and SC Paderborn, Bayern have impressively accumulated a goal difference of +12, having scored 14 goals, and only conceded twice. Of those 14 goals, Bayern have had a total of 10 different scorers; Robert Lewandowski leads the way with 3 of them to his name.

By contrast, Leverkusen have worked harder against lower-league sides; 2. Liga side Karlsruher FC forced them to extra time in the first round, and it took a strong-second half surge to get past Union Berlin in the second round. Leverkusen may have been the weaker side when they faced Borussia Mönchengladbach in the round of 16, but a second-half goal from Leon Bailey got them through to the quarter finals. After going 2 goals down inside of the first 10 minutes against Werder Bremem, they fought back exceptionally well to force extra time and come out 4-2 winners thanks to extra time goals from Karim Bellarabi and Kai Havertz.