The Set: Cologne 1–1 Arminia Bielefeld

Cologne dom­i­nated much of the game at home against Arminia Biele­feld, but in the end, couldn’t break down the central-half pair­ing of Herzig and Andre Mija­tovic with Den­nis Eil­hoff in goal. With over 60% of pos­ses­sion and 16 shots on goal by Cologne, it was down to the orga­ni­za­tion of the two cen­tral defend­ers to frusta rate the home side and deliver the cru­cial point for Arminia.

Cologne opened the scor­ing in the 15th minute when Matip found Ehret free down the left with a pitch-long pass. Ehret then sent an in-swinger into the box where Vuci­ce­vic made a good dummy run that pulled the defend­ers for­ward, allow­ing Petit to ghost in and head the ball in for his 3rd of the cam­paign. It looked like a rout was on as Eil­hoff was called on to save two more defin­i­tive chances in the 17th and 22nd. But those saves proved cru­cial as Arminia found a lev­eler late in the 2nd half.

Biele­feld took advan­tage on the one mis­take by the Cologne defense. In the 42nd, Brecko tried to send a ball back to the keeper. The ball hit Geromel, acci­den­tally, and Katongo picked up the loose ball and made a beau­ti­ful shot from the top of the box to equal­ize. It was only the sec­ond goal of the cam­paign for the cre­ative midfielder.

While Cologne con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate the game in the sec­ond half, they could never find a win­ner. Novakovic was subbed at half due to injury, so most of the chances in the sec­ond stanza fell to Vuci­ce­vic and his fin­ish­ing isn’t the best part of his game.

In the end, Cologne will felt hard done by with a point, but they are safe from rel­e­ga­tion. Mean­while, Biele­feld earned a point on tenac­ity and sees itself two places off rel­e­ga­tion, as they leapfrog Cot­tbus in the standings.

7 Ran­dom Things About Cologne and Arminia

1. Wich­niarek was essen­tially taken out of this game by the poor cross­ing of Biele­feld. Jonas Kam­per had a game to for­get as he pro­vided more sou­venirs than chances. While McKenna did a solid job on the Biele­feld cap­tain, he only had one real chance the entire game due to a lack of service.
2. Markus Boll­man was the weak­est link. And it was obvi­ous that Daum had tar­geted him from the begin­ning as Cologne’s attack flowed down its own left hand side to pick on the RB. If it weren’t for Herzig and Mija­tovic, Bollman’s poor per­for­mance would have been much more notable.
3. 19 year old Kevin Pez­zoni is going to be a mas­sive star in the Bun­desliga. He is very solid in front of the back line and puts in some of the most crunch­ing, yet legal, tack­les in any league in Europe. In a game where a good DM is worth his weight in gold, Pez­zoni is going to be a house­hold name within two years.
4. Sergiu Radu, on the other hand, is well past he sell-on date. The rea­son he is passed around more than Poke­mon cards at a Ele­men­tary school is because he has turned to com­plete and utter garbage over the past two years. Daum tried to change the for­ma­tion by bring­ing him on, but he did noth­ing, and it ended up cost­ing them when Ehret sus­tained an injury late in the game and couldn’t come off.
5. I can’t help but think that Cologne sup­port­ers aren’t doing them­selves any favors. Yes, I under­stand the frus­tra­tion they have felt at being a huge club that has turned into a Yo-Yo side. How­ever, they are quick to get down on the team, which puts the play­ers under pres­sure and has led to Cologne being a bet­ter road team than a home one. Hope­fully, Cologne fans will see the error of this destruc­tive ten­dency and fix it next year.
6. Michael Frontzeck made a quick move in the 75th when he subbed Robert Tesche for Oliver Kirch. Kirch had just made a late chal­lenge on Kevin McKenna that was arguably book­able. But while the ref was pre­oc­cu­pied with the injury, the Arminia trainer replaced the mid­fielder before he could get his sec­ond yel­low. It may have well, saved the point.
7. Con­sid­er­ing that they lost both Petit and Novakovic dur­ing the match, it should be noted how much Cologne have grown over the sea­son. These two play­ers were the crux of the team when the sea­son started. With­out both, they still played well and with a lineup of young play­ers like Ehret, Vuci­ce­vic, Pez­zoni, Brecko, Matip, Brosinksi, McKenna and Geromel, this is going to be a team to con­tend with in the com­ing cam­paigns.
   
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   The Set: Cologne 1–1 Arminia Biele­feld, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

   Tagged as: Andre Mijatovic, Artur Wichniarek, Kevin Pezzoni, Markus Bollman, Nico Eilhoff