The professionals of the Bundesliga football club 1. FC Köln, which is deep in crisis, apparently first have to earn the support of their fans again. Following the 2-3 defeat on Tuesday evening in the second round of the DFB Cup at second division club 1. FC Kaiserslautern, the players waited in vain for the 4,000 supporters who had traveled with them to encourage them.
“They were dissatisfied with the result, including the 0:6 (against RB Leipzig last Saturday, note d. Red.) played in – you can understand that,” said goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe, commenting on the silence in the visitors’ block. Timo Hübers saw it similarly: “The fans were as disappointed as we were.”
Previously, the Bundesliga second-to-last had suffered the next depressing defeat in the atmospheric traditional duel against the sixth-place team in the second division. In front of 49,327 spectators at the sold-out Betzenberg, Richmond Tachie (19th), Kenny Prince Redondo (47th) and Marlon Ritter (65th) scored for the Palatinate team, who secured the bonus of 862,400 euros for advancing.
However, the misery of Cologne, who have only won one game in the league and were beaten by RB Leipzig on Saturday, continues. The late goals from Florian Kainz (71st) and Mark Uth (81st) didn’t change that, especially since Cologne ended the game with ten men: Captain Kainz was shown red in the 84th minute for serious foul play. Five minutes earlier, Eric Martel, who had already been substituted, had been shown a yellow-red card for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“We are super disappointed. Things aren’t going so well in the league. We wanted to take a sense of success with us into the league, but we missed that,” said Hübers. Goalscorer Uth admitted that the players are mentally weak. “When you are in such a negative spiral, at some point your head starts to go bad,” said the goalscorer.
A win on Saturday in the league against FC Augsburg (3:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky) is a must for Uth: “We know what’s at stake on Saturday – we have to win the game.”
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DFB Cup: The FCK exacerbates the Cologne crisis
Coach Steffen Baumgart spoke plainly. “We are in an absolutely shitty situation in the league and are out of the cup,” said coach: “We are the only ones who can get us out of there. That’s just how it is. We have to do it,” said the 51-year-old Baumgart on ZDF.
Andreas Erb, Kaiserslautern Published/Updated: Recommendations: 6 A comment from Peter Heß Published/Updated: Recommendations: 17 Peter h. Eisenhuth, Mainz Published/Updated: Recommendations: 2
And further: “It wasn’t quite as bad as 0:3 sounds. That’s positive, but not positive enough. “You lost a game that you shouldn’t lose,” said Baumgart. It is probably the most complicated situation of his term in office so far. You can tell that the boys are also working in their heads, added the head coach.
