Cologne wins at the Funkel debut-and can rise on Saturday

Giant step towards ascent

Funkel celebrates last-minute victory at Cologne’s last minute

Thanks to a goalkeeper error, the 1st FC Köln is on the best way towards the Bundesliga, could climb the sofa tomorrow. In the table cellar, Münster dreams of direct relegation.

Thanks to a last minute goal, Friedhelm Funkel started his rescuer mission at 1. FC Köln. The trainer celebrated a successful debut at the 2-1 (0: 0) at 1. FC Nürnberg – and is now very close to his seventh promotion to the Bundesliga.

Next weekend, FC can make everything clear against the 1st FC Kaiserslautern on the last match day. Or even celebrate the promotion this Saturday – if the pursuers Elversberg and Magdeburg should not win.

After Janis Antierte (46.) shot the Nuremberg lead, FC reacted Stark. Florian Kainz initially equalized (67th), then he benefited from a blackout from the FCN goalkeeper Michal Kukucka (90th), who celebrated his professional debut during his winning goal. At least temporarily, Cologne is now the first table – however, Hamburger SV can pass again on Saturday (8:30 p.m. against Ulm) and make the promotion perfect.

Funkel was only presented on Monday as the successor to Gerhard Struber, under whose direction the FC occupied second place in the table but did not convince in terms of sport. Christian Keller also had to go because the sports director had not supported the decision of the board against Struber.

In the middle of these turbulent days, Funkel chose a calm and relaxed approach. The veteran, who is now training FC for the third time, had many conversations during the week and wanted to convey ease and fun again to his players who were recently lost.

These measures seemed to have worked. The Cologne team started dynamically. Even the first structured attack led to a penalty (2nd) that referee Robert Hartmann took back after viewing the video images. Despite this discussable decision, Cologne remained persistent, Eric Martel (6th) and Tim Lemperle (10th) gained good chances, Jan Thielmann first hit the post (19th) and then the latte (36.).

Funkel’s team also made some defensive negligence – and completely slept down into the second half. Annex used a flank by direct acceptance, Cologne’s captain Timo Hübers had misjudged the cross.

FC wanted to hit back quickly, but initially found no gaps against the now very deeply defending Nuremberg. Even the numerous standards did not lead to more goal.

Funkel reacted after a good hour: he brought Linton Maina to have more speed in the Cologne offensive game. Shortly afterwards, the Joker gave the huge chance of equalization (64th), again Kainz made it better after a ball win by Luca Waldschmidt when he punished an excursion of Nuremberg goalkeeper Kuckucka, crossed Kainz and the Austrian scored in the empty goal for the acclaimed victory.

Prussia Münster made a very important victory in the final sprint for relegation. Against Hertha BSC, the team of team boss and ex-international Christian Pander won 2-0 on Friday evening (1-0). With 35 points, Münster initially jumped from relegation rank 16 to 14th place and can even dream of keeping a league before the season finale.