FC Köln’s Dominant Win over Borussia Mönchengladbach: More Energy Leads to Victory

Sometimes the reason for the outcome of football games is surprisingly simple. In 1. FC Köln’s 3-1 win in the derby against Borussia Mönchengladbach, neither strategy nor individual class nor coincidences were decisive; Steffen Baumgart’s team simply invested more energy. In the end, Cologne won with two penalties converted by Florian Kainz and a late third goal by Luca Waldschmidt, who said after FC’s first win of the season: “We have finally rewarded ourselves for the effort.”

The game started six minutes later than planned due to an excessive pyrotechnic show by the Cologne fans in the south curve. A banner read: “There is only one winner today. 11 red and white warriors”. The players seemed to absorb this aggressiveness from the stands, and Cologne’s actions in the early stages seemed like fireworks.

The ball ran well through the midfield, Cologne won practically all of the decisive duels and there were a number of dangerous shots. And after seven minutes, the referees led by Deniz Aytekin decided on a hand penalty for FC, according to the video images. Manu Koné jumped in on a shot from Waldschmidt with his arms apart, whereupon Kainz scored his first goal.

“A terrible first half”

It was an impressive start, from which the clearly inferior Gladbachers only recovered somewhat during the break. “We played a terrible first half that I can’t explain,” Julian Weigl said later. The Gladbachers never created any real danger in front of the goal, even after the break. However, they used a corner to luckily equalize when Cologne’s Eric Martel lost sight of his opponent Nico Elvedi, who scored to make it 1-1 (63′).

On that day, the Cologne team were so much stronger that they literally forced victory. “We already knew what was going on today and that’s how we performed,” said Kainz. “We were aggressive and poisonous, and then we did quite well at the back.” First, Gladbach’s Koné was shown the red card after a kick on Ljubicic’s ankle, which was checked by VAR (73′).

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Shortly afterwards, goalkeeper Nicolas hit Waldschmidt in the head with his fist during a defensive attempt, whereupon Cologne were allowed to take their second penalty. In the first attempt, Kainz failed because of Nicolas, who had moved forward too early, the second one was sitting (76′). But it wasn’t until Waldschmidt finally scored with his strong left foot to make it 3-1 (90th) that the game was decided.

2023-10-22 21:40:39
#Cologne #defeats #Borussia #Mönchengladbach #Bundesliga #derby