18th matchday
Berlin / Cologne (dpa) – Bayern are welcome to come. After jumping to a European Cup place with 1. FC Köln, Steffen Baumgart made one thing clear. Healthy self-confidence and humility in keeping with one’s status do not have to be a contradiction in terms.
Against the record champions from Munich, the billy and friendly billy billy goat coach, with all due respect, does not want to lose a bit of his football joy next Saturday. This finally led him to a hard-boiled 3: 1 at Hertha BSC at the start of the second half of the season and initially in sixth place in the Bundesliga.
“I have the feeling that if I stand in the back, I can get my ass fucked up just as much as if I play forward. I have more fun playing forward, so I’ll see that we have a good game against Bayern.” , said Baumgart on Sunday evening after the third win in a row in Berlin. Football can be that simple.
Not nine months ago, Cologne was still in the greatest danger of relegation without Baumgart as a trainer after a frighteningly fearful zero number in Berlin. Now the FC is one of the best thirds of the league and the serious international candidates in German football. What does that do to Baumgart? Nothing. The opportune and obligatory question about the European Cup just rolled off the 50-year-old who was 50 years old last week.
“If the performance stays that way, if the results stay that way, then we won’t stop certain things, but we won’t talk about them. We’ll leave that to you. We are happy with the points we have collected,” said his totally clarified answer. He already has 28 points. There are no egg dances with Baumgart.
His players have internalized the refreshing directness of their coach. They would like to try “to annoy Bayern again,” said defender Luca Kilian, who started in Berlin for Rafael Czichos who had moved to Chicago. The 22-year-old, together with his neighbor Timo Hübers (25), became the symbol of the Cologne upswing on a daily basis. “We can rely on everyone,” stated goalkeeper Marvin Schwänke about the new, still relatively young central defense.
Those words somehow fitted the whole team. Because the game on the Berlin bumpy lawn did not run by itself. “There is always criticism,” Baumgart growled heartily, without going into details beyond a few balls that were played too long. Anthony Modeste is now better than Cologne icon Lukas Podolski (55) with 56 Bundesliga goals. The other goals from Ondrej Duda and Jan Thielmann made the victory possible. Cologne was one point better in this millennium at the same point in the season only in 2017. At the end of the season they were fifth and then played in the European Cup for the last time so far.
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