A good goalkeeper alone doesn’t bring victories – 1. FC Köln has had this experience since the start of the season. And the derby is coming up this weekend.
You can really feel sorry for Marvin Schwäbe at the moment. Week after week the keeper presents himself 1. FC Cologne in top form, is definitely one of the hopefuls in the fight to stay in the league in the difficult situation the club finds itself in. You can’t even imagine what Cologne’s goal difference would look like without their strong number one.
But no matter how well Schwäbe is doing at the moment, he hasn’t been able to stop a bad streak so far: across all seasons, 1. FC Köln haven’t kept a clean sheet in 16 Bundesliga duels. The last time the 28-year-old was able to keep his box clean was on April 2, 2023 in a 0-0 draw Borussia Monchengladbach – and that exact team will be visiting the Rheinenergie Stadium again on Sunday.
So does the derby come full circle? It would be extremely important because FC is deep in the relegation battle for the first time in the Baumgart era. After seven Bundesliga games, Cologne is still winless and is in last place in the table. The club has only had a worse start to a season once – that was six years ago under Peter Stöger. At the end of the season there was the last relegation in the club’s history to date.
“We can’t be 19th”
The importance of the game is therefore clear to everyone in the club. We finally have to start scoring points, said Schwäbe, who didn’t beat around the bush. However, he added: “We’ve been wanting to do that for the last few weeks.” As is well known, it worked far too rarely, which constantly increases the pressure on the team. The coach therefore tried to convey a certain lightness to his players: “It doesn’t get any lower than that. We are 18th in the table, we can’t be 19th.”
It is exactly this relaxed style of Baumgart that is so appreciated at Geißbockheim, and which is why you don’t want to waste any thought on a change of coach even in the event of a derby defeat. On the contrary: Baumgart was “perfect” at FC, said FC manager Christian Keller in an interview with the TV channel Sky.
But he is also aware that things are simmering dangerously around the club. A sense of success could be the long-awaited initial spark, but a defeat against the arch-rival could also finally change the mood. Especially since Gladbach has so far remained far below its potential in terms of results.
Jahn Regensburg as a role model
So the derby countdown is running, and FC is still relying entirely on the principle of hope. Keller is also encouraged by his experience with his former club Jahn Regensburg. In the 2017/18 second division season, Jahn, as a promoted team, lost five times on the first seven match days. “It was only by staying calm and focused, trusting the team and following our game idea with conviction that we were still able to finish fifth in the end,” said the sports director. FC would probably also sign 15th place at the moment.
