With a lot of hard work, Bayer Leverkusen is expanding its top position in the Bundesliga. But the league leaders have to tremble in the 2-0 win against ten Cologne players.04.03.2024 | 9:01 min
With patience and a cool head to win the derby: Bayer Leverkusen took the next step towards their longed-for first championship title with a lackluster success at 1. FC Köln and further exacerbated the worries of their Rhenish rivals.
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Jeremie Frimpong (38th) and Alejandro Grimaldo (72nd) scored for the superior Leverkusen team, who did not let the heated atmosphere get infected and are now unbeaten in their 34th competitive game in a row. Cologne’s Jan Thielmann (14th) was shown a red card early on for kicking Granit Xhaka’s calf.
Cologne is short on personnel heading into the next derby
Cologne are still in the relegation place in the table, but given that they are eight points behind in 15th place, direct rescue seems more and more utopian.
And in the next derby, which is even more emotionally important for them, on Saturday in Mönchengladbach, they have to replace Thielmann as well as Dejan Ljubicic, who received his fifth yellow card. In addition, Justin Diehl had to leave the field injured just four minutes after being substituted on.
Record champions in crisis
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FC Bayern is still in crisis and is in danger of losing sight of the title in the Bundesliga. The record champions only managed a 2:2 (1:1) draw at SC Freiburg.
Ljubicic has the first big chance for Cologne
League leaders Leverkuen initially controlled the ball and rhythm in Cologne, but without shining. Jonas Hofmann could have given the visitors the lead after just three minutes, but narrowly missed from 16 meters. But Cologne also had a huge chance when Ljubicic headed just wide of the goal (11th).
However, the faint hope that arose quickly diminished significantly when Thielmann stepped on Granit Xhaka’s heel from behind. Referee Tobias Stieler initially left it with a yellow card, but according to the TV images, he understandably corrected himself to red.
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Martel is lucky with a foul against Wirtz
The Cologne spectators found this to be too harsh and now demanded a card after every Leverkusen entry in a duel. Instead, Cologne’s Eric Martel was lucky that he wasn’t thrown off the pitch after a foul against Florian Wirtz (29th).
Being outnumbered, the Cologne team initially managed to narrow the space. Bayer also often acted awkwardly and had to wait until the 37th minute for the next big chance. But a few seconds after Wirtz was defeated by Marvin Schwäbe, Frimpong pushed a cross from Grimaldo over the line from three meters after extra time from Patrik Schick to take the lead.
Adamyan unlucky when he hits the post
But it wasn’t really confident what the front-runner played against the courageously fighting Cologne team. And in the 51st minute he was even very lucky when Adamyan hit the inside post with a direct shot from five meters. When Grimaldo scored through Schwäbe’s legs following an assist from Amine Adli, the game was over.
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Source: dpa, SID