RB Leipzig beat 1. FC Köln on Matchday 22 – Nkunku, Olmo and Angeliño score dream goals

The Saxons jump to fourth place and are level on points with fifth-placed Union Berlin (34 points).

Nkunku (25) gave Leipzig the lead in front of 15,000 spectators with a spectacular free kick and scored his eleventh goal of the season. Olmo increased in the second round with a long-range shot (54th) and hung up for Angelino (57th). Tim Lemperle (90+1) scored for FC.

Sixth-placed SC Freiburg (33 points) can already overtake RB in a duel with FSV Mainz 05 on Saturday. The Cologne team had to let go and are seventh with 32 points. Before the game, RB coach Domenico Tedesco had asserted that he had not looked at the table “for weeks” and was not yet concerned with the race for the premier class. “I didn’t know that we could finish fourth with a win,” said the coach.

He preferred to focus on avoiding similar defensive blunders as those that led to Bayern Munich’s 3-2 defeat last matchday. On the offensive, Tedesco had called for a balance between short passes and long balls, but the attacking line-up of Andre Silva, Olmo and Nkunku struggled at the beginning.

Cologne intervened as energetically as his trainer Steffen Baumgart cheered on after being released from the corona quarantine. The last time he watched the 1-0 win against SC Freiburg in isolation, pictures of it became an internet hit.

In Leipzig it only became a bit more spectacular in the middle of the first half. The offensively harmless Cologne team in this phase, who had to do without their sick top striker Anthony Modeste (14 goals this season), now saw themselves under stress.

After a relay pass, Nkunku (23rd) couldn’t find a suitable target from an acute angle – Cologne’s Luca Kilian saved in dire need. He and his partner Timo Hübers had their hands full but were powerless when Nkunku curled an 18-yard free-kick into the corner with plenty of slicing.

After the break, Dani Olmo turned up the heat. The Spaniard, who has been getting better and better lately, was not attacked after a pass by Amadou Haidara and scored flat on the bottom left. Köln could no longer find access and Nkunku served Olmo, who saw Angelino in the center three minutes after his goal.

Olmo’s compatriot just had to push in. Cologne’s best chance to date was shot by Modeste’s substitute Sebastian Andersson (66′) before FC goalkeeper Marvin Schwäbe had to save again immediately against Nkunku (68′).