Even in this most optimistic of football cities, there were days when it felt like it would never come. Even though it sometimes feels as if the never whining, always atmospheric RheinEnergieStadion has almost otherworldly powers, there had only been one previous victory for FC Köln this season, in the derby against Borussia Mönchengladbach – way back in October. It has been a season of small harvests, and then some.
A lot has happened since then, if not much in terms of wins, points or even goals; a transfer ban, a slew of injuries and the departure of a beloved coach in Steffen Baumgart. But with Carnival approaching in the city of Cologne, which celebrates it like no other, and the festivities started in the streets at 11.11 am on Thursday, this was the aperitif, whetting the appetite with a soup of traditional joy and chaos. .
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Saturday evening’s 2-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt had everything to satisfy the hungry. Two goals – only for the second time this season – and a healthy dose of fight and commitment have breathed some life into a season that was gasping for air in recent weeks. It also had a hero, where one was desperately needed.
The pre-match tribute to two-time 1978 winner Heinz Simmet, who also played 259 consecutive Bundesliga games for Effzeh from 1970 to 1977, was interrupted by the visiting fans, much to the chagrin of the home fans and stadium announcer Michael Trippel, who tried to make his way through the cacophony. Yet the memory of better times left the question hanging in the air as to who could take this a step further.
Faride Alidou enters. After scoring the goal in the draw against Wolfsburg last week, Timo Schultz named him in the starting line-up for only the third time this league season. The coach doesn’t have many options with Davie Selke and Luca Waldschmidt absent for several weeks, so Alidou got the nod against his parent club, having been loaned out in the summer but used sparingly since.
He turned out, perhaps inevitably, to be the central figure. Alidou made a cut down the right when Niels Nkounkou brought him down, collecting a second booking and sending Eintracht down to 10 men. From the resulting half-cleared set-piece, Dejan Ljubicic hit the ball back into the danger zone and Alidou tapped it into the net. The 22-year-old Alidou, who gingerly raised his hands in the air as everyone around him lost their heads, celebrated only a second goal at home for Effzeh since November.
Even when Jan Thielmann sealed the deal by scoring the second, whipping Ljubicic’s pass into the far corner of Kevin Trapp’s goal with the reassurance that we always do this, it was only when an ailing Eintracht picked up a second red card . card in the final 10 minutes, when Tuta planted an arm in Jeff Chabot’s face for his own second yellow card, the locals began to exhale.
Every goal is always celebrated as an event at the old Müngersdorfer, but it is worth being praised like that at this moment. These two beating Eintracht were only Köln’s 13th and 14th of the season in 20 Bundesliga games. It has become a running joke. When Lothar Matthäus stood in the penalty area for kick-off with presenter Sebastian Hellmann on Sky, he couldn’t resist firing a few straggling balls from home goalkeepers Marvin Schwäbe and Philipp Pentke’s warm-up into the net. “Now I have scored as many goals in front of the Südtribune as FC Köln did in the entire season,” he laughed.
It was also not possible that Effzeh would do anything to make the front part of the team more dynamic in the January period. On the same day in December that the departure of Baumgart – a coach whose trademark flat cap had become a popular item in the club shop – was announced, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld the club’s ban on signing players in the next two transfer windows. register because of the signing. by Jaka Cuber Potocnik, which found that the player had breached his contract and Köln had induced him to do so. The various pieces of evidence pointed to incompetence rather than ignominy, but either way the club is in a hole.
This was the long-awaited light at the end of the tunnel. “Declaring a change for the better might be a bit too much at this point,” warned director Christian Keller. “We won a match. We see that we are on the right track, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us.” That may be true, but hope springs eternal in this city – especially during Carnival season.
Discussion points
• There was little relief, even during the carnival season, for Mainz. After Saturday’s home defeat to in-form Werder Bremen, where Marvin Ducksch’s goal after 107 seconds gave Werder a third win in a row, the 05ers have not recorded any wins since November 4 and, like Köln, have only 14 goals to their name are in the Bundesliga. That win over RB Leipzig three months ago, which led to the club eventually installing Jan Siewart into the post of head coach, now feels like it was in a different season and the former Huddersfield coach’s position is under threat. “We have to face reality,” Siewart said, with the lingering feeling that there are not enough heads in the locker room. Wednesday’s catch-up game with Union Berlin, which lost 2-0 to Leipzig, could not have been more vital.
Speaking of games with huge consequences, Bayern Munich couldn’t afford a single mistake against their bogey team Gladbach before the visit of Bayer Leverkusen next week, with Leverkusen, inspired by a Nathan Tella double, running out easy enough winners in Darmstadt. So it was logical that Bayern harassed Gerardo Seoane’s team from the start and still scored a goal thanks to Nico Elvedi’s beautifully constructed attack. Increasingly influential teenager Aleksandar Pavlovic equalized with his first at the Allianz Arena before everything settled down in the closing stages; Harry Kane’s goal gave him the highest-scoring Bayern debut ever in the Bundesliga, with Matthijs de Ligt scoring and Sacha Boey making a welcome debut. Thomas Müller also celebrated a 500th win as a Bayern player, although Alphonso Davies left with a ligament injury. “I have no words for it,” complained Thomas Tuchel.
Friday: Heidenheim 0-0 Dortmund
Saturday: Cologne 2-0 Eintracht Frankfurt, Bayern. Munich 3-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Darmstadt 0-2 Leverkusen, Freiburg 1-3 Stuttgart, Mainz 0-1 Werder Bremen, Bochum 1-1 Augsburg
Sunday: RB Leipzig 2-0 Union Berlin, Wolfsburg 2-2 Hoffenheim
• Stuttgart remains third as Deniz Undav’s campaign to prepare for Germany’s Euro 2024 takes on an almost irresistible pace. The forward scored and provided two assists as his team won 3-1 in Freiburg, with a Pokal quarter-final in Leverkusen on Tuesday – a final before the final, almost, with so many big players eliminated. “I am convinced that we have the necessary quality,” said a quietly confident Fabian Wohlgemuth, the club’s sporting director.
• As expected, Jadon Sancho headed to Heidenheim on Friday evening with tense muscles – Edin Terzic had warned that the loaned winger would need to be carefully managed after such a long period of inactivity – and with other creatives such as Julian Brandt and Marco Reus also missing, BVB rarely seemed to score in a dull goalless draw. “Almost no one came close to his maximum,” an unusually critical Terzic complained to Dazn.
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Pos |
Team |
P |
GD |
Ptn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Bayer Leverkusen |
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|
2 |
Bayern Munich |
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|
3 |
Stuttgart |
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4 |
Borussia Dortmund |
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|
5 |
RB Leipzig |
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|
6 |
Eintracht Frankfurt |
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|
7 |
Freiburg |
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|
8 |
Hoffenheim |
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|
9 |
Werder Bremen |
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|
10 |
Heidenheim |
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|
11 |
Wolfsburg |
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|
12 |
Augsburg |
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|
13 |
Borussia M’gladbach |
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|
14 |
VfL Bochum |
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15 |
Union Berlin |
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16 |
Cologne |
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17 |
Mainz |
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|
18 |
Darmstadt |