The away trip to Hoffenheim was once again a trip to forget for 1. FC Köln. Against TSG, the Geißböcke hardly brought their strengths onto the pitch at any point. Coach Steffen Baumgart, meanwhile, was also looking for faults in himself.
There are days when you’d better stay in bed. 1. FC Köln had exactly one of those days on this Friday in autumn. And if you believe the statistics, the debacle did not come as a surprise. The last success against TSG Hoffenheim was six and a half years ago, and this autumn evening did not allow for blossoming dreams for the future. “The Hoffenheimers displayed exactly the virtues that we normally display,” was the explanation given by Rafael Czichos, captain for the ill Jonas Hector on this bitter evening.
Czichos’ enumeration of the deficits at the DAZN microphone reads like a balance sheet of horror: “They attacked high, with a lot of aggression, directly disturbed us in the build-up to the game. We made far too many mistakes, individual mistakes in our forward play. We weren’t aggressive enough in the duels, we were always one step too late. You can’t win like that here, Hoffenheim are too strong for that. “
Horn: “Hoffenheim really showed us up “
The list of horrors was not complete. Right from the start, the Geißböcke failed to find order or allocation, they stood far too far apart on a pitch that the hosts stretched wide almost at will – opening the way towards Timo Horn with unattractive regularity.
“We had no grip,” analysed the unfortunate Cologne keeper, the loneliest man in the stadium that evening. The brace after the break was a “bitter blow”, they had actually wanted to try and turn the game around: “Exactly the opposite then happened.” And that’s why the conclusion was: “Hoffenheim really showed us up, today we got our asses kicked, and now we have to wipe our mouths, not think about it too much and move on.
It was an abrupt end to Cologne’s high-flying run, which nevertheless is far from over. With few exceptions, almost every Bundesliga team concedes at least one defeat per season. The decisive factor for the further course of the season is how it is dealt with. Steffen Baumgart is not one to become despondent after setbacks. The coach knows best how difficult it is to replace players like Ellyes Skhiri, Jonas Hector or Dejan Ljubicic. The fact that he doesn’t carry it around in front of him like a monstrance does him credit. Nevertheless, on this bitter Friday in Sinsheim, he also got an impression that the performance gap in the squad may be greater than it seems.
Baumgart’s highest Bundesliga defeat
“We as a coaching team should perhaps have reacted earlier to the three-man backline, which is then also an experience for me,” Baumgart also saw potential for improvement in himself and his staff, but without absolving his players of blame. “We can’t do two or three percent less, that doesn’t work. We have to learn that we can get our arses handed to us against such opponents,” said Baumgart, who had never lost so heavily in the Bundesliga.
FC will have a chance to make amends next weekend when Bayer Leverkusen come to the Rhineland derby. “It’s a derby, we play at home and will do everything in our power to approach this game in a completely different way and to win,” Baumgart is already setting the tone for the coming matchday. Before that, however, FC will be paying close attention to everything that went wrong in Sinsheim. Both with the players and the coaching team.
