SAt the final whistle, teffen Baumgart threw up his arms, got on his knees and took a deep breath. The badly battered 1. FC Köln earned a well-deserved point against TSG Hoffenheim – and not only coach Baumgart was noticeably relieved after this 1-1 (1-1) against Cologne’s feared opponent.
“The boys get a lot of compliments from me. It’s nice that we leave our hearts on the pitch and it’s fun to see the boys like that,” Baumgart said on DAZN. Cologne’s goalscorer Florian Kainz added: “We are very satisfied with the performance and the result. We threw out everything that was still possible. It was a very intense week, you could tell. It was important that we took something with us – and I’m very proud of that.”
Kainz (13th) gave Cologne the lead, Jacob Bruun Larsen (35th) equalized. Hoffenheim ended the game after a yellow-red card against Ozan Kabak (87th) with ten men. In the end, after the last eight defeats against TSG, there was still a draw for FC, both teams kept in touch with the European Cup ranks. And that wasn’t necessarily to be expected.
Less than 53 hours earlier, Cologne had won in the Conference League at FC Slovacko (1-0), this match had been postponed by a day because of fog. The trip to the Czech provinces also claimed two more injuries in the already decimated squad – and they really hurt: Captain Jonas Hector and six Ellyes Skhiri were the ones who kept FC together despite the permanent rotation.
And then Hennes was missing
Five other starting eleven candidates were missing anyway, in view of all these factors the tabloid already wrote about “Baumgart’s toughest FC game”. And then Hennes also signed off. The billy goat, otherwise at every game in Müngersdorf, stayed with a cold in Cologne Zoo.
In front of 49,000 spectators, the duel started evenly. Hoffenheim was strong in the game, combining again and again until the last third. Cologne, meanwhile, pressed more cautiously than usual – but countered to take the lead. Stanley Nsoki misjudged a long ball, Linton Maina was unstoppable after that and served top scorer Kainz in the middle.
Hoffenheim always seemed capable of creating danger, however, and minutes later Marvin Schwäbe had to deflect a cross from Robert Skov. It went back and forth now. Maina (25′) and Kainz (33′) each narrowly missed for Cologne, while Hoffenheim took advantage of a ball loss on the other side. Christoph Baumgartner prepared very well, Bruun Larsen was correct.
It was a completely open game even after the break, in which the Cologne team quickly had the next big chance through Kainz (52′). TSG coach Andre Breitenreiter rearranged his back three, which made the defense more stable, but both teams continued to play forward.
