TElli recently had two Bundesliga games thrown out of the schedule, and the winter break was involuntarily extended for Bremen, Hoffenheim, St. Pauli and Leipzig. There were no further outages on Saturday; Even though there was so much sleet on the rough pitch on the Ostalb in Heidenheim that the game management had an orange ball played for safety reasons. But lo and behold: the performance of the second-to-last in the table against the hardly better off 1. FC Köln was able to warm the minds of the spectators for a long time. And the other games also offered plenty of material for entertainment – and debate.
1. FC Heidenheim – 1. FC Cologne 2:2 (2:1)
After a quarter of an hour, the teams even took the audience briefly to Copacabana. First Heidenheim’s Jan Schöppner dribbled to the baseline and shoveled the ball into the penalty area not far from the corner flag. There, Marvin Pieringer maneuvered the ball onto the goal so artfully with a mixture of side and back kicks that the competitors for the goal of the month would have a hard time. Cologne goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe was so taken aback that the ball whizzed over his head (15th).
:“Then it starts again: Was the VAR drinking coffee?”
He is constantly discussed and very few people know his work. A conversation with video referee Pascal Müller, who has been sitting in the Cologne basement almost every week for six years and says: Football without VAR would no longer be accepted.
Cologne responded hardly less delicately: Cross from Alessio Castro-Montes, header from Eric Martel – with the back of his head and back to the goal – it was Cologne’s first goal in the league in almost four hours (18th). Heidenheim’s 2-1 win by Julian Niehues (26th) was a better match for the weather and the terrain, the ball flipped through the HSV penalty area after a corner before Niehues scored. His teammates Arijon Ibrahimovic and Sirlord Conteh should have scored at least the third goal shortly afterwards. So Cologne’s Said El Mala was able to equalize, this time with a beautifully designed shot (48′). And even though the guests grotesquely missed their best chances in the second half, the penultimate team in the table clawed and clawed their way to the next point – and for the time being they are catching up with St. Pauli without a game in the relegation zone.
Union Berlin – FSV Mainz 05 2:2 (0:1)
Were those signs of emotion? One would have even expected Urs Fischer to be a little moved (“I am not a volcano”) when the 59-year-old Swiss stopped by Union Berlin again on Saturday. Fischer once led the Berliners from League Two into the Champions League, which says a lot about why they recently entrusted Fischer with an team in Mainz that slipped to the bottom of the table. Maybe it was just the Berlin cold that brought a tear or two to Fischer’s eye on Saturday.
In any case, Fischer’s no-frills approach worked surprisingly quickly in Mainz – strong in duels on defense, determined in attack – his first four competitive games ended without defeat. And in the 2-2 draw in Berlin, another point was added; After all, it was the ninth of the season, which brings Mainz within three points of relegation place 16. Until 20 minutes before the end it even looked like an away win, Nadiem Amiri (30th) and former Union player Benedict Hollerbach (69th) had scored, Hollerbach narrowly missed making it 3-0. But then Union apparently remembered that before the winter break they had beaten Leipzig, among others, and moved up to eighth place in the table. Woo-yeong Jeong (77th) and Marin Ljubičić (86th) got the deserved equalizer.
SC Freiburg – Hamburger SV 2:1 (0:0)
At HSV they recently had to contend with a stormy slump, albeit a footballing one, in their offensive department. Damion Downs, on loan from Southampton FC, is supposed to provide relief. And so the 21-year-old German-American was immediately drafted into the starting lineup on Saturday. However, it was hardly surprising that Downs had not yet developed much of a bond with his colleagues; until he was substituted in the second half, he probably had hardly any more contact with the ball than his goalkeeper Daniel Heuer Fernandes. He had a lot to do with parrying Freiburg’s chances.
For a short time, the promoted team could even hope to take the favorites by surprise; after 48 minutes, Luka Vuskovic pushed the ball into the goal after a corner. But just three minutes later, Daniel Elfadli kicked Freiburg’s Lucas Höler in the heel in the penalty area – Vincenzo Grifo was sent off and Vincenzo Grifo equalized. Hamburg fought back until the 83rd minute, then Igor Matanovic heaved the ball into the goal to make it 2-1. However, Freiburg’s Johan Manzambi had previously hit Hamburg’s Jordan Torunarigha in the face with his elbow, which brought Hamburg’s temper to temperatures well above freezing point. However, the arbitration tribunal around referee Timo Gerach did not warm up to an intervention.
