“World Class!” Köhn via Salzburg to the 2022 World Cup? – Football
Philipp Köhn’s bright yellow jersey must have burned itself deep into Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s retina last Tuesday.
The Chelsea superstar kept appearing in front of the Salzburg box, but failed a total of four times at the brilliant goalkeeper from Mozartstadt.
Köhn also reeled off a terrific goalkeeper performance in other respects, the close home defeat of the “Bullen” against the “Blues” (Game report>>>) am least.
“He showed a world-class performance again today. Big compliment”, his coach Matthias Jaissle ennobled him at the press conference after the game.
However, the German does not want to let his discovery of the 2021 summer preparations take off: “The way he has had our backs for months and has kept winning games, or at least thwarted some big chances today – that’s what we have him for. But also a big compliment, because that is not a matter of course.”
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From the second Swiss league to the Champions League
The brilliant performance against Chelsea was not Köhn’s first for the “Bulls”. Born in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and trained at VfB Stuttgart, the Swiss will return to the city of Mozart in the summer of 2021 from a loan from Swiss second division club FC Wil and promptly announced his number one position publicly.
At the time, this announcement was smiled off as a phrase, because Köhn hardly played a role in Salzburg except for the 2018/19 season, when he alternated with Daniel Antosch as number one at FC Liefering, and on the other hand, because there were only a few responsible in Mozartstadt Months earlier, two million euros – and thus more than ever for a goalkeeper – paid for the German youth team player Nico Mantl.
Since Mantl made a mistake in his first season appearances in 2021/22 and Köhn performed well in the preparatory games, the Swiss suddenly rose to Salzburg’s number one. In the Champions League, too, the often somewhat shy-looking “Witcher” was given the trust of Matthias Jaissle – and repaid it with strong performances.
Especially the round of 16 first leg against FC Bayern, when he drove Robert Lewandowski and Co. to despair with sometimes unbelievable saves, brought Köhn a lot of credit. Nevertheless, he had to face another open duel with Mantl for the Einserleiberl in the summer preparations for 2022.
“Just try to do my best”
This time the goalkeeper, who is perfectly trained in football, was able to win it again and this season has once again influenced his already strong performances.
In the home game against Dinamo Zagreb a few weeks ago, he unleashed reflexes as if from another planet, and there were sensational saves in the game against Chelsea last Tuesday.
“I’m just trying to do my best. Unfortunately, it still rang twice, but that’s just the quality. It’s fun at such a level,” Köhn said modestly to “Sky” after his brilliant performance.
His coach is a little clearer: “In order to defeat him, you needed a world-class player who could sometimes hit the ball in the 18-yard crease,” Jaissle puts it in a nutshell.
Köhn in Switzerland was only number 6
The performance of the son of a Swiss mother and a German father did not go unnoticed in Switzerland either.
Nati coach Murat Yakin invited him to the Swiss national team for the first time in November; The native German, who has also played for various DFB youth teams, has since been denied appearances and other nominations.
Of course, this is because Switzerland has a selection of top-class goalkeepers that Austria can only look at with envy across the border.
Yann Sommer (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Gregor Kobel (Borussia Dortmund), Jonas Omlin (Montpellier), Yvon Mvogo (Lorient) and David von Ballmoos (YB) were all ahead of Köhn in the national goalkeeper ranking. Will that change before the 2022 World Cup, for which Switzerland was able to qualify?
“I try to perform from game to game and, when balls come at my goal, to keep them. It’s worked very well in the last few games. I try to build on that. What the coach (Yakin, note) then says I can’t influence the World Cup. I’m just trying to do my best and impose myself a bit,” said Köhn about his difficult national situation.
Okafor: “Hope he’ll be at the World Cup”
In the last few days, however, the 24-year-old’s chances of participating in the World Cup have increased significantly – and not just because of his incredible performance against Chelsea. Both Omlin and Sommer were injured last week and are now questionable for Qatar.
At least one Swiss would definitely like Kön to be nominated: Noah Okafor. “He’s an excellent goalkeeper. I’m happy to have him in the team. I’m not the coach, but I hope he’ll be there if he keeps going like this,” said the Nati-seeded striker about his Mozartstadter teammates.
Whether Okafor’s wish will become reality will be shown with a delay on November 13th, when Switzerland has to announce its fixed World Cup squad. However, Köhn cannot recommend himself for a nomination much more urgently than in the past few weeks.