1. FC Cologne is off to a dream start to the Bundesliga season. The reason is a new quality that is actually not typically Cologne.
When 1. FC Köln defeated Hamburger SV after 102 minutes of play, the players and those responsible fell into each other’s arms with relief. The reason was not just the three points, but also how it came about. For the first time this season, the Billy Goats did not enter the game as underdogs.
Before the games against BVB (0:1) and FC Bayern (1:4), Lukas Kwasniok said that he loved to make his team enjoy the role of outsiders. And that’s exactly how the billy goats played and impressed against the two top clubs – despite the two unfortunate defeats. But now HSV was a different test.
Namely, how FC would deal with the pressure after the good start to the season that many fans expected a home win. The duel between the two promoted teams was therefore predestined to represent a real endurance test for the new FC. And the Kwasniok troop passed this with flying colors.
Not without mistakes, after all there was still a lot to tremble after the goal. But which newcomer is perfect? Rather, the Cologne team once again demonstrated the new qualities under Kwasniok: an enormous willingness to run (the FC ran around 124 kilometers again), a high intensity coupled with strong duels (the FC won 60 percent of the direct duels) and a tactical variability that had been repeatedly visible in the previous weeks.
On Sunday evening there was once again a mixture of the irrepressible power from the stands through the support of the fans on the one hand and the FC’s new playing power on the pitch on the other. The billy goats earned the victory and also fought for it in phases in which HSV was better. And when Cologne had the chance to end the game, the individual players Said El Mala and Jakub Kaminski took advantage of their opportunities.
This mixture of the euphoria in the environment and the basic virtues of football, which Kwasniok demands on a daily basis, has worked exemplary at FC so far. The team as well as those responsible live a new humility that is actually atypical for Cologne. And yet it is exactly what makes FC so strong. This is one of the reasons why the billy goats are currently deservedly in seventh place in the Bundesliga.