2024-08-24 23:38:29
After a disappointing start to the season, 1. FC Cologne was under pressure before the third match day. But the “Geißbock” stood firm – and shot themselves into a frenzy.
1. FC Cologne won the second division top match against Eintracht Braunschweig by a clear margin. Coach Gerhard Struber’s team defeated the bottom team 5-0. The Lower Saxony team is in a real crisis after 3 games with 0 points and 13 goals conceded. Coach Daniel Scherning is gradually coming under criticism.
For the Bundesliga relegated team from Cologne, the victory was a kind of liberation after only one point from the first two games. Before that, the FC had lost 1:2 against Hamburger SV and 2:2 at SV Elversberg.
Captain Timo Hübers put the hosts ahead with a header in front of 50,000 spectators (26th minute). Dejan Ljubicic, who was willing to make a substitution, increased the lead after a great combination (34th minute), Tim Lemperle (58th minute) and Ljubicic (61st minute) added to the score after the break. Shortly before the end, substitute Luca Waldschmidt (88th minute) also scored, having recently come under increasing criticism due to poor performances.
Cologne started with a lot of momentum and pushed Braunschweig onto the defensive early on. The reward was almost half an hour away: after a corner from Linton Maina, Hübers headed the ball powerfully towards the goal from five meters. The ball bounced off the back of his teammate Lemperle and into the net. Lemperle and Maina also played their part in the 2-0, which they set up perfectly on the left side of the attack.
When pouring rain, thunder and lightning started, the flow of the game did not stop at FC. Eintracht offered little resistance, stumbling from one embarrassment to the next. After the break, the guests did a little more, and had one or two chances to score. But Lemperle made the decision on the other side.
Braunschweig, with two clear defeats in the league (1:5 at Schalke 04 and 1:3 against 1. FC Magdeburg) and the elimination in the DFB Cup (1:4 against Eintracht Frankfurt) started even worse than the FC, and remains bottom of the table without a point.