This will be a very important game in the table cellar. On Tuesday, 1. FC Köln began preparing for the duel at VfL Bochum (Saturday, November 11, 2023, 6:30 p.m./Sky and in the live ticker on EXPRESS.de).
Tuesday morning, November 7th, 11 a.m., Geißbockheim: Coach Steffen Baumgart (51) invites his professionals onto the pitch. It’s the start of a very important training week. There will be a duel at VfL Bochum on Saturday. Cologne wants to celebrate carnival, FC finally wants to achieve liberation.
1. FC Köln before Bochum game: Dejan Ljubicic is missing
With a win, Steffen Baumgart’s team can leave last place in the table, but Bochum can also send another exclamation mark to the competition in the relegation battle as they are currently 14th in the league.
For Baumgart this week it’s all about getting our heads up, spreading self-confidence and increasing efficiency in front of the goal. However, three players were missing from team training at the start of the week.
Dejan Ljubicic (26) had to sit out due to illness, as the club announced shortly before the start of the 11 a.m. session. In addition, goalkeeper Philipp Pentke (38) and Jacob Christensen (22) are still in advanced training.
The Austrian midfielder Ljubicic was on the bench in the 1-1 draw against Augsburg last Saturday, then came on the field in the 76th minute for colleague Luca Waldschmidt. He had previously played seven games over 90 minutes this season.
Ljubicic not nominated for Austria’s national team
But things got even worse for the 26-year-old Viennese. He was not nominated by Austria coach Ralf Rangnick for the upcoming international matches in Estonia (November 16th) and at home against Germany (November 21st). Will the midfielder’s European Championship dream burst? He would like to be at the finals in 2024, but he has now been eliminated.
Baumgart said on Tuesday after the session: “Dejan called in sick today. If he called in sick, he wasn’t feeling well at first. Now I’m hoping he’ll come back in the next day or two, but I can’t say because I don’t have any precise information yet.”
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He doesn’t want to talk to him about not being nominated for the Austrians: “No, I talk to him about everything, but why he wasn’t nominated for the national team is always based on the performance principle. If Ralf Rangnick is currently of the opinion that it’s not enough, then it has something to do with the fact that there are fluctuations in performance in football.”
Baumgart continues to believe in Ljubicic, explaining: “His performances weren’t so good that you could say he came out of the ashes like Phoenix. He also struggles with his performance, just like us. But that doesn’t mean he won’t come to the European Championships. There’s still half a year left. He’ll put everything into it. Dejan will also be back, so I assume he will be back for the next international match.”
1. FC Köln continues to fight against their offensive weakness
There was intensive work in training without Ljubicic. After the 1-1 draw against FC Augsburg, Baumgart complained about the numerous chances that were wasted. The training of efficient conclusions is likely to be accelerated in the coming days. Things went well in the training game on Tuesday. Baumgart kept encouraging his boys: “Now pull through! Great guys.”
Luca Waldschmidt even took advantage of breaks in training to fire well-placed shots on goal. Will the knot finally break for him in Bochum? Against Augsburg he missed numerous good opportunities.
Bochum’s Takuma Asano (28) did better and wants to go one better against Cologne after shining as a double goalscorer in the 2-1 win in Darmstadt: “I think we can still improve and more is possible. Of course I’m happy that I was able to help the team with my two goals. I’m happy that we’ve now achieved our first win. That was just the beginning, we want to get more points step by step. I give everything for this team.”
2023-11-07 17:17:21
#break #bench #regular #player #missing #training
