Cologne’s Damion Downs beats Nuremberg almost single-handedly

Damion Downs was the decisive man in 1. FC Köln’s deserved home win against 1. FC Nürnberg. The Rhinelanders are climbing in the table of the 2nd Bundesliga.

There are those days when everything works out. And Damion Downs will probably remember this first half on this Sunday afternoon (December 15th, 2024) for a long time. The 1. FC Köln attacker, who replaced the injured Tim Lemperle, was the man who made the big difference in the 3-1 (3-0) win against 1. FC Nürnberg.

With this home win, coach Gerhard Struber’s team slipped to second place in the 2nd league table after the 16th matchday. The Nuremberg team under coach Miroslav Klose, on the other hand, have been without a win for six games and are therefore in the middle of the pack.

“We really wanted to win. The way we played in the first half was really good. We did a lot of things right. It shows that we’re maturing,” FC coach Gerhard Struber told Sportschau.

“We just reacted. We weren’t ready to make these sprints in many phases. Neither on offense nor on defense. I didn’t recognize the team in the first half. We could only show one reaction, to the second half We were then able to build,” said “Club” coach Miroslav Klose.

Gala performance from Cologne’s Downs

From the start, the Cologne team showed who really wanted to win this game. After just six minutes, FC took the lead through Downs, who thus began his gala performance.

The Cologne attacker displaced his opponent and hammered the ball from the left side of the penalty area into the bottom left corner. However, “Club” goalkeeper Jan Reichert looked anything but good.

The FC followed suit – and were successful a short time later. Florian Kainz converted a penalty kick to make it 2-0 (17th). Referee Robin Braun had previously recognized a rather questionable foul by FCN defender Ondrej Karafiat on Downs.

Cologne’s Huseinbasic also scores

After that, the Klose team became more active and applied at least a little pressure. However, the Franconians had little impact, let alone a goal threat.

And the Cologne team had this 20-year-old downs that afternoon, which prepared the 3-0 (31st) in an exemplary manner after a Cologne counterattack with a direct pass on to Denis Huseinbasic that was worth seeing. As a result, the Cologne team could have increased their result even further.

The Nuremberg team also had a chance to score worth mentioning shortly before the end of the first half, but Julian Justvan, completely free-standing, centrally in front of the Cologne goal, failed with a header from eight meters past a Cologne defensive leg.

Nuremberg’s Castrop with a surprising Connection hit

Cologne remained powerful even after the change and was initially the better team. Even if the “Club” created a bit of a goal threat, especially through standard situations. But then the Franks had a strong moment.

Jens Castrop shot from 25 meters, FC goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe still had his fingertips on it, but was no longer able to redirect the ball decisively. The 1:3 (59th minute) suddenly made the game, which had previously been dominated by Cologne, exciting again.

The FC seemed shocked and unsettled for a long time. The Klose team, on the other hand, saw their chance to take at least one more point from the Rhineland. However, the Struber team recovered and managed the game and the success over time.

Cologne in Lautern, Nuremberg against Braunschweig

Cologne expects an away game in Lautern next matchday (December 22nd, 1:30 p.m.). Nuremberg welcomes the team from Braunschweig in the top game (December 21st, 8:30 p.m.).