Fortuna Cologne wins “special” first league game of the year
Regionalliga West: Fortuna Köln won a complicated game at SV Straelen 2-0 and presented themselves as a real top team.
“The first game after the break is always special,” noted Fortuna Cologne coach Alexander Ende after the 2-0 (1-0) win at SV Straelen out (via Reviersport), “and we mastered that in a great way.” It was the first game of the year in the Regional League West, after three games had already been canceled.
Fortune Cologne
In addition, the people of Cologne had only been training as a team again since Wednesday, before that some players, coaches and staff members were in quarantine and there was no training. Accordingly, it was not an easy task in windy Straelen.
The team didn’t notice that at the beginning. With the wind at her back, she was very dominant in the first half, Straelen could hardly get out of her own half: long balls were stopped on the center line, noticed by the wind, short passes from behind were hardly possible due to the attacking pressing of the guests. At the break, however, it was “only” 0:1 due to a hit by Sasha Marquet after a corner (30th).
Fortuna Cologne survives Straelen pressure phase
“We played with the wind in the first half and were therefore very dominant. It was a bit different in the second half,” said Ende. “In the meantime, there were ten minutes in which Straelen had good actions. We got through them because we threw ourselves into it.” However, the wind alone should not have been responsible for Straelen’s improved performance, the hosts were now also better in terms of play and had one or the other good scoring opportunity, especially from set pieces. Andrew Weiss in the Cologne goal but parried several times.
On the other hand, Fortuna Köln were often dangerous, for example when Marquet hit the crossbar after an hour. But for now the narrow lead remained and how important it was to bring this over time was shown in a small scene just before the 0:2: After a failed offensive action that resulted in a Straelen counterattack and a tactical foul by Seymour Finger resulted in rattling Soren Dieckmann and Suheyel Najar verbally loudly at each other and exchange opinions. There was also some tension.
Victory “well deserved”
And integrated it would even have gone wrong when Cagatay squad shot over the empty goal in the 73rd minute and missed Straelen’s biggest chance. Shortly thereafter, the Südstadter played an attack in the style of a top team and Stalk Batarilo-Cerdic fully stretched to the preliminary decision. “All in all, the win is well deserved. In terms of the number of chances, no other winner would have deserved it,” concluded Ende.
The first three points of the year have been scored, after the turbulent past few weeks with game cancellations and Corona, there are also three very important ones to directly underpin the ambitions in the promotion race again. It continues next Friday against the Wuppertal SV.