There is a particular cruelty to a cup final settled before the seats are warm. Halle, a third-division side who had no business being here, walked out at their own ground in front of a near-capacity 15,040 with the German Cup glittering in front of them. Six minutes later, it was effectively gone.

Hamburg, a top-flight club that began the season rated 80 to Halle's 60, did not so much win the Season 3 DEU Cup as ambush it. Two goals inside the opening six minutes turned the showpiece into a long, fruitless chase. It finished 0-2 — and in truth it could have been put to bed by half-time.

Two strikes, then the shutters

The first arrived in the third minute. Hamburg were awarded a penalty, Yves Bissouma planted himself over the ball, and the midfielder — who would walk off with the man-of-the-match award and a flawless rating of 10 — sent the home keeper the wrong way. Before the crowd had drawn breath it was two: a quick combination down the right released a Hamburg forward to beat Matei Goga in the sixth minute. Hosts 0, visitors 2, barely 360 seconds on the clock.

What followed was the strange, hollow theatre of a final in which the underdog has all the ball and none of the answers. Halle enjoyed 53% of possession, worked 12 shots to Hamburg's 11 and forced seven corners. Aliou Thiare stung the visiting goalkeeper's palms inside ten minutes; Matteo Spinaccè had already dragged a chance wide. But the Hamburg keeper, eased into a calm rhythm, made five saves, and in front of him Sebastian Schonlau was immovable, the centre-half matching Bissouma stride for stride with a 10 of his own.

Game management, Hamburg-style

Tellingly, Bidart's side never chased a third. Hamburg made all three of their changes at the interval — including withdrawing both the scorer and the creator of that second goal — and settled into a lead they were never likely to surrender. Halle boss Ralek4 emptied his bench with a triple substitution just past the hour, but the chances kept dying on the same blue wall. The bookings — Bissouma, Halle's Franco Carboni and Hamburg's Jonathan Gradit, all cautioned either side of the break — were about the only further drama the night offered.

The run that earned the heartbreak

Do not let the scoreline rewrite how Halle got here. Ralek4's club came up from Division 4 as champions back in Season 1 and now sit mid-table in the third tier, yet their cup run was the stuff of folklore: an 11-0 evisceration of Berlin Westend in the opening round, penalty-shootout nerve to see off Pirmasens and Kaiserslautern, and a 2-0 semi-final dismissal of Mainz. Seven ties, seven survived. The eighth, against a side three divisions above them, was a bridge too far.

Redemption in blue

For Hamburg, this is a wound finally healed. They were beaten cup finalists in Season 1, runners-up under a different regime; under Bidart they have gone one better and lifted the trophy for the first time, with the competition's 66.9m-SVC prize pot to sweeten it. A tenth-place finish in DEU Division 1 made for an underwhelming league campaign, but knockout football asks a different question — and Hamburg answered it inside six minutes.

Halle go back to the third division with the bruise of a final lost on their own turf, and the quiet knowledge that, for one improbable spring, they were the best cup story in Germany. Finals, though, are unsentimental. Hamburg knew exactly what to do with a head start. The fairytale never got out of the blocks.