About Telekom Cup

History, Format, Organization, Media Coverage

The Telekom Cup, previously known as the T-Home Cup and LIGA total! Cup, is a friendly German cup competition founded in 2008. This tournament has regularly been a four-match event featuring four Bundesliga sides, though this has not always been the case due to participation and conflicting schedules.

The first six Telekom Cup editions featured 60-minute matches (30 minutes per half), with the four fixtures — two semifinals, the third-place playoff, and the final — being held over two days. Five different clubs won the competition during this period, with only Bayern Munich enjoying success more than once.

In 2015, the Telekom Cup reduced all games from 60 to 45 minutes. Additionally, the organizers decided to stage all four fixtures on the same day, with Hamburger SV winning the cup during this format’s debut.

The Telekom Cup was not held in 2016 while the event went on a two-year hiatus from 2019 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only two teams took part in 2022, one of which was AC Milan, the first foreign side invited to the competition.

Bayern Munich has unsurprisingly dominated this tournament, winning five times from its inception until 2019. In the first 10 editions of the Telekom Cup, only one other team won more than once and that was Hamburger SV with two victories.