Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart wasn’t in the mood for small talk on Saturday evening. Especially not about carnival and partying. When the press conference after 1. FC Köln’s 1-1 draw at VfL Bochum ended, Bochum coach Thomas Letsch tried to open a casual conversation with the casual question: “So, are you still going into the city?” However, Baumgart answered quite succinctly: “I definitely don’t!” – and left it at that. Nobody should think that after the tenth game without a win on the eleventh matchday when they were bottom of the table, they could even feel like being exuberant.
For carnival-interested number tinkerers and sign interpreters, the one-one from the eleventh matchday on the evening of the eleventh in a game eleven against eleven may have meant a rare constellation, but this was not of any use to the football representatives of the most important carnival stronghold during their guest appearance in the Ruhr area. “You’re just a carnival club!”, the Bochum fans said in a sharp-tongued greeting before kick-off, before Bochum’s carnival prince Jean-Pascal I appeared on the lawn to announce that the carnival greeting in his city was: “Bochum – man tau!”
That means something like: Bochum, let’s go!, and that’s pretty much how the VfL footballers like to appear in their stronghold called the Ruhrstadion. After Lukas Daschner made it 1-0 in the 25th minute, they had to accept Davie Selke’s equalizer in the 54th minute and didn’t manage it either, with what felt like 111 shots on goal (actually there were exactly 25 during the game). to achieve the victory he actually deserves. “That was two points lost today,” said Bochum coach Letsch afterwards. “It was a small partial success for us today,” said Cologne coach Baumgart. “That was nothing today!” said Cologne sports director Christian Keller a bit harshly.
There is hardly any singing from the Cologne block – after a police operation before the start of the game, many ultras apparently drove home
Anyone interested in evidence in this regard might hear a subtle criticism of coach Baumgart in Keller’s scolding, but that is not guaranteed. Especially since the board of 1. FC Cologne sent a soothing letter to the club’s approximately 132,500 members on Thursday, in which it classified the sporting situation as “below all expectations and also below the possibilities”, but in which it emphasized that I want to keep calm and continue on the chosen path. Both the coach Baumgart and the sports director Keller were given a vote of confidence, and the fans were explicitly asked: “Let’s give the team conviction and support in order to strengthen them and release what’s inside them.”
However, this didn’t work out so well on Saturday evening in Bochum, because the so-called Ultras, who also create the entire atmosphere in the Cologne block at away games, were not even present in Bochum’s Ruhrstadion. There was hardly any singing from the Cologne guest block; it remained pretty quiet there throughout the game because before the game at the guest entrance, agitated Cologne ultras apparently clashed with the Bochum security service and the police. When they were initially denied access to the stadium, the Ultras reportedly decided to go straight back home. A few hundred fans were brought back to their buses under police protection.
While disappointed Bochum footballers learned that their club had never before remained winless in the first five home games of a Bundesliga season, 1. FC Köln has now always conceded at least one goal in 19 Bundesliga games in a row. This will certainly be on the agenda for the next eleven days of training during the international break. They can then show whether it was of any use – on Friday evening against FC Bayern.
