Robert Lewandowski towered over FC Bayern’s victory in Cologne

IAt least Steffen Baumgart was able to take home a small profit after the crashing 0:4 defeat of his 1. FC Köln against FC Bayern Munich. The Rhinelanders’ coach exchanged Manuel Neuer’s jersey for himself, although he had to give up his famous flat cap in return. “I’ve wanted a jersey from Manu for a very, very long time because I like and collect stuff like that,” said Baumgart and Neuer, who had played his first game of the year after a Covid illness, explained the background to his counterclaim as follows: “The Cap is a bit legendary.”

The mood was good for both the winners and the losers after this game, in which Bayern showed off their impressive strength to all those who, after the first impressions of the year, are still hoping for an exciting championship race. Robert Lewandowski had scored three goals, Thomas Müller and Leroy Sané had prepared two goals each. Neuer said: “After the defeat against Mönchengladbach it was simply important for us to score the first three points of the year here, that’s how we played. “

Although the Cologne team “didn’t play badly”, as right-back Benno Schmitz explained, a performance close to perfection was required against this opponent. But after three wins in a row, the Cologne team made a few mistakes. The league leaders led 2-0 early on after goals from Lewandowski (9th) and Corentin Tolisso (25th). Cologne’s Ondrej Duda initiated the first goal with a bad loss of ball in the build-up game (9th). And Tolisso’s wonderful volley into the corner was preceded by a remarkable interaction with Thomas Müller.

In this phase in the middle of the first half, the Cologne team was threatened with a small downfall. Confidence was shattered, the 750 spectators in the stands, who had initially tried to support their team with chants, became more and more silent. However, particularly strict assessors of Munich’s performance could also accuse Julian Nageslmann’s team of a certain negligence in dealing with the many promising attacks, for example. Nagelsmann spoke of “a few wrong decisions up front”, the overall level of the game was not particularly high, both teams made a lot of mistakes. But it didn’t get boring, because at some point the Cologne team found new courage and looked for opportunities to attack.

Under Baumgart, FC are famous for getting back up after setbacks, and there were moments when that could have been done this afternoon. After half an hour, Cologne even scored the 1:2, but the goal scorer Mark Uth was just offside when he was played. As a result, the Cologne team came up with more dangerous shots before the 62nd minute followed, in which the game finally tipped in favor of Bayern. Initially, Uth had a good chance to head the ball, but narrowly missed the goal angle. “We were a little lucky that we didn’t concede a goal,” Nagelsmann admitted. And practically in return, Lewandowski made it 0: 3 after a nice through ball from substitute Sané.

On this day, the people of Cologne simply lacked a portion of luck. “You don’t get that many chances against Bayern, you have to create them,” said Schmitz. Even after conceding the third goal, Dejan Ljubicic and Anthony Modeste still had a good double chance, but the shot was too imprecise (69′), and Sebastian Andersson headed on the crossbar (72′). Above all, Bayern were more efficient in the second half. And so Lewandowski scored his third goal, again Sané had contributed the preparatory work. “He’s a machine at the front of the box,” said Neuer about his Polish colleague, who hopes to be named the best footballer in the world by Fifa next week.