The 1. FC Köln was a fixed part of the Bundesliga for 35 years. Then the FC merged to the elevator club. Is the seventh rise of club history?
Founding member, first German champion, double winner, Bundesliga dino: 1. FC Köln has been a formative figure in German professional football since the 1963/64 season. Then the decay started and the descents came with it. Not one, but four within nine years.
They were dreary years. Years of which they had believed to have escaped. But every time the FC seemed on the way up, we went back to the 2nd Bundesliga. A look back at the ribbing and ascents of the billy goats. Finally, FC wants to rise against the 1st FC Kaiserslautern for the seventh time on Sunday (May 18).
FC was always one of the top teams in the Bundesliga. FC had not reached the top ten four times in 30 years of Bundesliga. But then came the 1990s. After the scandalous release of successful coach Christoph Daum in the summer of 1990 it went downhill. Morten Olsen could not bring the success of previous years. It got worse with Peter Neururer-and in 1998 FC rose from the Bundesliga for the first time under Lorenz-Günther Köstner.
The first second division season was a shock for FC. Only tenth place, Bernd Schuster overwhelmed as a trainer, the FC is not ready for the league. First Ewald Lienen, cult coach in a blue shirt, brought back success. A big cadre break helped, and in May 2000 the FC celebrated the acclaimed Bundesliga return thanks to a spectacular 5: 3 victory in Hanover.
But FC did not stay in the Bundesliga for long. A strong season was among Lienen as a promoted place in tenth. After that, however, the FC was completely out of date on the transfer market. Marco Reich is still considered one of the biggest misconducts in club history. There was also Lilian Laslandes (nickname: Laslandesliga). Even Friedhelm Funkel could not save FC. Yes, exactly the sparkle that is supposed to return FC to the Bundesliga 23 years later.
Funkel rose again only a year later. Matthias Scherz (18 goals) and Dirk Lottner (13 goals) shot the billy goat back to the Bundesliga. But the FC was completely overwhelmed. With 23 points from 34 games, FC played the worst season in the club’s worst season and it immediately went back to League two.
One change of coach followed the next. Marcel Koller discovered Lukas Podolski and Lukas Sinkiewicz, but then took over Huub Stevens and led FC back to the Bundesliga. However, the Dutch did not go on, so Uwe Rapolder was allowed to fail in the 2005/06 season, which Hans-Peter Latour could no longer correct.
The Swiss had to vacate the place after relegation in 2006 and a failed start to the season in League, because then the Messiah came back: Christoph Daum, after a legendary press conference from the hospital, again took over the goats, kissed children in the stadium on the forehead like the Pope at a trade fair, and the coach star broke through the elevator alb dream. FC returned to the Bundesliga in 2008 – and stayed there.
With the returnee Daum stayed in the league. And even though Daum went, the next Messiah came back. With returnee Podolski, FC stayed in the Bundesliga. Three – albeit mostly dreary – years: only under Zvonimir Soldo, then under Frank Schaefer and later under stale Solbakken. But it was Solbakken who made everything wrong together with sports director Volker Finke, so it went back to the 2nd league in 2012.
The phase of perhaps the greatest upheaval in FC history began. Holger Stanislawski took over that the squad was rebuilt with over 40 transfer movements in summer 2012. The immediate return failed, but in summer 2013 not only Peter Stöger and Jörg Schmadtke came as a new success duo on the bridge, but also Patrick Helmes, Marcel Risse and the feeling of a new FC. This new FC rose to the Bundesliga in 2014 as a master – and it seemed as if everything would be fine now.