ENone of the 18 Bundesliga clubs have played a competitive game yet, but the new season has already brought about a small sensation: Steffen Baumgart is an all-round happy man in his role as coach of 1. FC Köln. “There is nothing I could be dissatisfied about. That’s why I’m very satisfied,” said the coach of the European Cup participants at the end of the summer preparations. Baumgart is open minded and not known for sugarcoating things; the interim status of his condition is therefore very credible. He actually had good reasons to worry before the new year.
With Salih Özcan, Cologne lost what is perhaps their most important professional. The midfielder, who was sold to BVB for six million euros, was replaced by the talents Eric Martel, 20, and Denis Huseinbasic, 21, who have never played in the Bundesliga. Even the sale of Anthony Modeste, who played a similarly significant role in last season’s successes as Özcan, remains up for debate. Sport director Thomas Kessler reported the latest status at a panel discussion on Monday: “We promised Tony that we would discuss the situation together if an offer came up. So far, however, no one has approached us.”
There is neither a clear commitment from the striker to FC nor a clear “No” from the sporting directors that would rule out a Modeste change. The truth is that those responsible at Geißbockheim would actually like to earn a larger amount on the transfer market and would also like to lower the salary level. Both would be possible with a sale of the top earner.
Cologne before a season of internal contradictions
When he was introduced in the spring, the new sports director Christian Keller openly described his employer as a “restructuring case” and announced: “A good piece of the future has already been wasted.” Now the time has come when exactly this future begins. “The only chance to recover in the long term is to work profitably,” says Keller, “and in order to work profitably, we just have to change things.” If in doubt, the most valuable players are then sold. In a way, FC is facing a season of internal contradictions.
On the one hand, they want to take advantage of the good mood that is over the city after the pandemic and the qualification for a European competition. At the same time, however, it is clear to everyone that such a wonderful season as the last can hardly be repeated. Especially since the team has to play six additional games in the Conference League in the event of a successful play-off round.
The joy of international encounters is huge, but instead of upgrading the squad accordingly, the decision was made to reduce the budget by around 20 percent compared to the previous year. By 2024, contaminated sites are to be eliminated “so that we can move freely again in two years,” says President Werner Wolf. These could be economically lean years, while a positive sporting development is expected on the pitch.
It seems as if the people of Cologne need a magician who, under these circumstances, can pull further progress, success and a good mood out of a hat, and it is also clear who should do the job: the cheerful Steffen Baumgart. Sports boss Keller believes that the successful coach can shape an era and speaks of a “positive example with years of role model character” on which the club is based.
Like SC Freiburg with Christian Streich, they always want to extend the contracts with Baumgart by another year in the future, although everyone involved wants a long-term cooperation. However, this wish should not be fulfilled through contracts, but through professional substance and mutual trust. In any case, the club management intends to hold on to this coach even in difficult phases, as long as there are no massive quarrels and no dramatic sporting collapse.
Because the aggressive and courageous football that Baumgart taught his team, who were still very insecure a year ago, not only looks good, it seems to work permanently. A slump was expected for a long time last year, but FC managed to qualify for a European Cup, and the team is now much further along in implementing Baumgart football. “If you already know the coach, you internalize it,” says attacker Mark Uth and adds: “That’s why we didn’t have so many problems implementing Steffen’s tactics during this preparation. That’s why we started much, much better.”
A year ago, Baumgart’s work was still overshadowed by the suspicion that a guy was driving a team with passion, but was reaching his limits when his sayings were repeated at some point. In addition, a number of experts thought that it could not be good to play football in such a risky way as an outsider, after all Baumgart was relegated to the second division in his first year as Bundesliga coach at SC Paderborn with waving flags.
In the meantime, not only those responsible in Cologne believe that this coach is a stroke of luck, who with his game idea can not only make the team better, but also individual players and thus more valuable. Exactly the type that this ailing 1. FC Köln needs.
