While the Cologne audience cheered the groundbreaking goal that had just fallen to make it 3-1, Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart was undergoing a transformation. It wasn’t quite as disturbing as the metamorphosis of the good Doctor Jekyll into the desolate Mister Hyde, but it was at least quite strange. This 3: 1, which ensured the victory of 1. FC Köln against SpVgg Greuther Fürth, was a wonderful goal with an exciting dramaturgy: Louis Schaub had pushed the ball over about 70 meters after defending a Fürth corner and at the right moment to his Ellyes Skhiri, who had rushed up, was passed on – whereupon each of the 40,000 visitors wondered where the extremely hard-working Skhiri got the strength for the sprint and the concentration for the fine shot on goal after 90 minutes of play.
But these issues did not concern the trainer Baumgart. He passed the time with a fit of rage that was well worth seeing, apparently in response to the referee’s decision that this game should be given four minutes of stoppage time, because it was the unfortunate fourth official Arno Blos from Deizisau who the angry Baumgart turned to . Was he worried that the victory would still be in danger?
The latter is unlikely to have been the case anymore, the persistent Fürth resistance was clearly broken with the third goal, and the coach – as he later said – had nothing to object to four minutes of stoppage time. In truth, Baumgart himself didn’t know why he was so upset that it looked like he was about to commit murder. “Simply out of the emotion,” he said with a shrug.
From a human point of view, nothing else than praise is to be expected, but Baumgart looks grim
What is always called emotion elsewhere, a favorite word in media sports, is still called “Jeföhl” in Cologne. The feeling for FC is very present in the city at the moment, people like to talk about the club everywhere and then nobody forgets to emphasize the merits of the coach who turned someone who was almost relegated into a rocket starter. Although this topic is less about the very acceptable sum of twelve points after seven games than about the way FC play football. Every league game so far has been a cinematic-quality action hit, including the 3-2 defeat at FC Bayern. “Steffen Baumgart becomes Chancellor” sang a group of fans in the south curve persistently.
“The Chancellery can wait a little longer,” denied Baumgart, who does not find it easy to deal with Jeföhl from Cologne. Besides being a little suspicious of people’s cocky irony, he also likes to raise objections when everyone is counting on his approval. He likes to argue anti-cyclically: someone asked about Skhiri’s tremendous goal and Skhiri’s performance, and from a human point of view nothing else than praise was to be expected. But Baumgart looked grimly over his desk when he heard the name of the 26-year-old midfielder. “He’s not as good as everyone else makes him,” he emphasized.
If I can, then I have to do it: Cologne’s Ellyes Skhiri (center) finds a plausible explanation for his appearance in the 3: 1 against SpVgg Greuther Fürth.
(Photo: Wunderl / Beautiful Sports / imago)
Of course, the coach noticed that the hard-working Frenchman had scored at least one and a half goals and again played an extremely caring role. Yes, yes, Baumgart admitted, Skhiri is a “very, very good player and very important for the team”, and yes, he gives his last shirt for the team and runs a lot. But, but, but: “Sometimes it runs too much and sometimes it goes wrong. Tactically, there is still room for improvement.”
For the meeting with the newcomer Fürth, Baumgart chooses an offensive and impressive line-up
In any case, before his goal in the 90th minute, Skhiri walked the right way and not a meter too much, the event was that he walked at all: “I can do it – so I have to do it,” he said with a smile if i can then i have to do it. “The pure energy performance”, which the sports director Jörg Jakobs had seen at Skhiri, has become, in his opinion, the Cologne principle: “The intensity seems to be our topic, it repeats itself week after week.”
This FC competes every week as if they were playing a knockout game in the cup. For the meeting with the newcomer Fürth, Baumgart chose the most aggressive and impressive line-up he could think of, but as so often in the cup, the outsider took the lead first. Marco Meyerhöfer scored the 1-0 after seven minutes thanks to a lack of Cologne coverage. And nobody knows how the evening would have ended if Jeremy Dudziak hadn’t hit the inside post twice in a row within five seconds instead of 2-0 (32nd minute). Again, the Cologne team defended with a lot of risk, “that’s just our thing,” said Jakobs. In the second half, thanks to goals from Sebastian Andersson (50th) and Skhiri (55th – in co-production with Raphael Czichos -, 90th), Cologne won through, “deservedly”, as Fürth’s disappointed coach Stefan Leitl noted.
Steffen Baumgart’s focus is on the offensive, but the way there is always connected with 1000 arduous duels. The team was convinced of the sense of this constant overcoming, the defenders accept the higher risk, the capricious technicians Mark Uth and Ondrej Duda the hard work. “Our face this year should be that we never give up and always go for the next goal,” said defender Czichos, summarizing the FC of the season 21/22. So far, desire and reality have been pretty close. With this interim balance, even the doctor and the mister in the trainer are reconciled: “All in all, you see me smiling,” said Baumgart – without even the slightest smile on his face.
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