Cologne vs. Borussia Dortmund: Winners and Losers from Bundesliga Game
Cologne pulled off an upset on the final Bundesliga matchday of 2015, beating Borussia Dortmund 2-1 in front of their own fans.
The Billy Goats lined up in a flexible 3-6-1 that for most parts of the first half turned into a 5-4-1. Head coach Peter Stoger made three changes to his starting XI, with Frederik Sorensen, Yannick Gerhardt and Simon Zoller playing instead of Kevin Vogt, Yuya Osako and Anthony Modeste.
Stoger's opponent on the touchline Thomas Tuchel made no fewer than five changes to the team that advanced in the DFB-Pokal in midweek. Matthias Ginter, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Park Joo-ho, Shinji Kagawa and Jonas Hofmann replaced Lukasz Piszczek, Sven Bender, Marcel Schmelzer, Gonzalo Castro and Adrian Ramos.
The visitors opened the scoring in the 18th minute. Nobody marked Sokratis at a corner from Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and the Greek centre-back didn't reject the gift. The goal came out of the proverbial blue, as Dortmund had struggled to open up Cologne's stingy defence to that point.
Stoger's men reacted well to the goal, they all pushed a bit further up the pitch and started to press Dortmund with more intensity. The Black and Yellows had only their 'keeper and the referee to thank for their lead being intact at intermission.
Roman Burki denied Sorensen with a fantastic save in the 33rd minute. Five minutes later, referee Knut Kircher waved off a blatant penalty for the hosts after Park had clearly fouled right-back Pawel Olkowski.
Julian Weigl had his side's only goalscoring opportunity from open play moments after the penalty incident, but his powerful effort went wide by a hair.
Cologne were clearly the better side for the entirety of the second interval. Dortmund looked sluggish and more and more tired, whereas the Billy Goats seemed to get stronger as the game went on.
Burki made a terrific save to parry a Zoller shot onto the post in the 79th minute, but four minutes later, it was his mistake that led to the equaliser. Thanks in large part to a wobbly pitch, he played the ball right into Zoller's path, who didn't miss this time.
Modeste, whom Stoger had substituted on 20 minutes from time, converted Cologne's final chance in the game and gave them a deserved victory in stoppage time.
With the win, Cologne stay in shouting distance to the spots that grant qualification to Europe at the end of the campaign, while Dortmund are now eight points behind Bayern Munich.
Without further ado, let's take a look at our picks for the winners and losers from the match.
Winner: Anthony Modeste
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There's only one place to start: Modeste's last-minute winner gave Cologne a deserved victory over heavily favoured opponents. As you can see above, the Frenchman celebrated his goal in style, and understandably so, as Christian Nyari tweeted: "Modeste gets the best possible goal after 752 minutes without scoring - a potential match winner against Dortmund."
After missing a spot-kick in the home defeat to FC Augsburg and being taken off at half-time against Werder Bremen last week, this goal must have felt especially sweet for Cologne's best goalscorer this term.
The 27-year-old started his career at the Rhine side with a bang, scoring nine goals and assisting two in his first nine matches across league and cup, but he had not found his way onto the scoresheet since October 4.
Loser: Roman Burki
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Had the game ended after 82 minutes, Burki would probably have been the first name on our list of winners of the game. He was brilliant, making two outstanding saves against Sorensen and Zoller that looked likely to give Dortmund the three points.
Alas, football matches are 90 minutes long, and therefore Burki has to be considered a loser. Although one can't put the whole blame on him, he gifted Cologne the equaliser with a horrific pass. The wobbly pitch, which Tuchel called extremely difficult to play on after the game, per Ruhr Nachrichten on Twitter (link in German), played a large part in the goal, but such is the fate of the men between the sticks sometimes.
Since Burki hasn't looked at the top of his game for large parts of the first half of the season, his going from hero to zero against Cologne won't quiet the talk among supporters who've voiced their disappointment with the newly signed 'keeper's performances for the Black and Yellows.
Winner: Matthias Lehmann and Yannick Gerhardt
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By now, most teams know what they have to do in order to make Dortmund suffer: Press the Black and Yellows' midfield, don't allow them to pick you apart with accurate passing and try to hit them on the counter when they do indeed lose the ball.
That's obviously easier said than done, but it worked like a charm in this game. That's largely due to the brilliant performances from captain Matthias Lehmann and Yannick Gerhardt. Cologne's double pivot bossed the game and was clearly superior to Dortmund's midfield masterminds Ilkay Gundogan, Weigl and Kagawa.
Lehmann put in a lot of good work defensively, leading his team with no fewer than six interceptions, according to WhoScored.com. Gerhardt, a more creative player, had two shots on target and won a few free-kicks in dangerous areas.
Before the game, the absence of Vogt looked like a possible problem for Stoger's men, since he's their most physical central midfielder, but it worked out in Cologne's favour.
Loser: Thomas Tuchel
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Dortmund's head coach made a few strange decisions before and during the game and played a large role in his team's third defeat of the term in the Bundesliga.
Despite the fact that Dortmund played in midweek, five changes without an injury to any of the players he rotated out of the XI—Bender picked up a knock but was deemed fit to play—seemed too many to begin with.
Two selections were head-scratchers in particular: Park and Hofmann played anything but convincingly the last time they were on the pitch in Dortmund's UEFA Europa League loss to PAOK earlier in December.
Against Cologne, those two played on the same side, to make matters worse. Almost every attack Cologne had in the first half came through the left of Dortmund's defence.
Tuchel reacted at half-time, bringing on Schmelzer for Park, and Schmelzer did better than the South Korea international—although it was his misplaced pass that started the move that led to Cologne's late winner.
Late in the game, when his side were struggling to hold on to the ball and Cologne edged closer and closer to their deserved equaliser, Tuchel opted to bring on Ramos, a secondary striker, and not Castro, who's much better on the ball and would've helped bring back balance to Dortmund's possession game.
Overall, it looked like Tuchel outthought himself and made life harder than it needed to be with his decisions.
Winner: Bayern Munich
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At the end of the week in which we called Dortmund the best side in the Bundesliga at the moment, the Bavarian giants extended their lead in the table to a comfortable eight points.
The increased cushion makes a fourth straight championship for Bayern look inevitable, although a true title challenge from the Black and Yellows always seemed unlikely.
Despite the frenzy concerning Pep Guardiola's contract status at the Allianz Arena and the fact that Bayern have so many injuries that they only had four players on the bench for their match against Hannover on Saturday, the end of 2015 shapes up rather nicely for the Bavarians.
The contract extensions of no fewer than four key players on Friday were an early Christmas gift for Munich's supporters, and Dortmund added another with their loss against Cologne.
