1.FC Cologne: The FC’s nerves are failing – now they have to rescue the sofa

1. FC Cologne

The FC’s nerves are failing: now they have to rescue the sofa

It could have been the almost perfect rescue in the fight to stay in the league. But 1. FC Cologne lost their nerve at Union Berlin.

After 70 minutes everything seemed perfect. The 1. FC Cologne led 2-0 at 1. FC Union Berlin. Marius Bülter and Said El Mala had put the billy goats on track with their goals. All the experts agreed that the three points would be enough to stay in the league – if not purely mathematically, but at least as humanly possible.

The problem: From then on, the FC’s nerves failed. First, René Wagner unnecessarily changed the entire offensive and, in addition to El Mala, also took long-running Jakub Kaminski and header Bülter off the field. The result: Just two minutes after the break, Union scored from a set piece – one of Wagner’s substitutes, Youssoupha Niang, dived under the ball so that Tom Rothe could head it in. And when Livan Burcu equalized, a second substitute, Jan Thielmann, dutifully gave the goalscorer protection.

So a 2-0 and the preliminary decision turned into a 2-2 and further tremors for FC. The billy goats can still celebrate staying in the league on two days on the sofa at home. Only on Sunday, St. Pauli should lose at home against Mainz and Wolfsburg should not win in Freiburg. And then again next week on Saturday when St. Pauli plays RB Leipzig and the Wolves host FC Bayern.

The billy goats only play at home again on Sundays against 1. FC Heidenheim. By then, despite the wasted victory at Union, relegation could already be secured. If not, the FC would have to give everything it has to offer again. Because Heidenheim showed in the spectacular 3-3 draw in Munich on Saturday that Frank Schmidt’s team won’t let themselves down.

There was also a real excitement at the Alte Försterei on Saturday: the equalizing goal came just seconds after Union failed to return a throw-in to FC in fair play style. What had happened? Cologne’s Eric Martel was left lying in the center circle with a cramp. Teammate Felipe Chavez then played the ball out of bounds to allow Martel to receive treatment.

The unspoken law of fair play states that the team who throws the ball in then passes the ball back to the opposing team. Union’s captain Christopher Trimmel, however, saw it differently and rated the chance of equalization as more important than the idea of ​​fair play. Just seconds after taking the throw-in, Burcu shot from the second row and scored to make it 2-2.

“It’s a bit of a shame because it’s fair play to play the ball back,” said FC goalscorer Bülter afterwards. “Pippo clearly plays him out of bounds. But we can’t change it anymore and there’s no point in getting too upset.” Bülter probably also knew: FC hadn’t given up the victory just because of the throw-in. Instead, we now have to wait and see what the competition does.