Ellyes Skhiri played against Leipzig together with Salih Özcan on the double six. (Photo: IMAGO / Bösener)
1. FC Köln played on the double six against RB Leipzig with Ellyes Skhiri and Salih Özcan. Although the Billy Goats were able to keep the opponent as far away from their own penalty area as possible through increased defensive stability, the changed tactical orientation caused a lack of penetrating power offensively.
The billy goats certainly missed Anthony Modeste on Friday evening in Leipzig. This fact can be seen from the number of header duels that FC has played against the runners-up: Cologne only went into an aerial duel 31 times. For comparison: against SC Freiburg, with the Frenchman in the starting XI, there were more than twice as many with 72.
But it was not just the absence of the best striker that cost FC offensively against RB. The switch to a double six also meant that there was a lack of an additional pass station offensively. Although the Cologne team had a passable pressing efficiency of 52 percent compared to the rest of the season, the Cologne team only managed to penetrate the opposing third a total of 28 times. In a season comparison, this is the worst value, whereby FC was able to penetrate the opposing half an average of 60 times, but then gave the ball back too quickly. In addition, the Cologne team achieved another negative record: With only seven advances into the opponent’s penalty area, the Cologne team remained in single digits for the first time in this statistic.
56 ball wins, 13 in the opposing half
What the offensive lacked in terms of passing station, the Cologne team had in their own play structure from the defense. At the beginning of the game it was always Salih Özcan, who dropped between the central defenders as a tipping six and looked for the pass to Skhiri in the centre. As the game progressed, the roles swapped and the Tunisian took over the central position in the three-man build-up.
In the entire game, FC had 56 active ball wins, a third of which can be attributed to Skhiri (six) and Özcan (13). However: Of the 56 ball wins, only 13 took place in the opposing half. FC played more of a midfield than an attacking pressing on Friday evening or were outplayed early on by the Leipzig team on the front line.
Not every team is called RB Leipzig
What the offensive lacked in terms of passing station, the Cologne team had in their own play structure from the defense. At the beginning of the game it was always Salih Özcan, who dropped between the central defenders as a tipping six and looked for the pass to Skhiri in the centre. As the game progressed, the roles swapped and the Tunisian took over the central position in the three-man build-up.
The switch to the double six gave the billy goats more stability on the defensive against Leipzig, so that Leipzig could largely be kept away from their own penalty area and the hosts only had six shots on goal. At the same time, the Cologne team had to pay tribute for this. In the rarest of cases, however, will a team with such offensive power and defensive consistency meet the billy goats in the remaining twelve games of the season, as Leipzig did on Friday. At the moment when coach Domenico Tedesco’s team were 3-0 up, his team also shifted down a gear, which gave FC more freedom in the opposing half. So the Cologne team should also expect to develop better offensively in the coming matchdays – possibly with only one player on the six.
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