In the course of his acquaintance with Steffen Baumgart, which lasted barely five months, Anthony Modeste repeatedly challenged his trainer’s tolerance for humor in a risky manner. Among other things, he splashed water from a drinking bottle on his face in the presence of the stadium audience, reminiscent of a scene from cartoon television – it made Baumgart look like the drenched tomcat Tom and Modeste like the triumphant mouse Jerry. At the next opportunity Modeste made his boss a king, who is presented by the court jester by tearing Baumgart’s hat, aka crown, off his head and putting it on himself to celebrate a provocative dance. In the past, coaches would have stated that something like this was “undermining the authority of the superior” and imposed forest runs with lead vests.
Instead, Steffen Baumgart exceptionally swapped the preferred grim expression for a benevolent expression on Sunday evening at 7:30 pm and hugged Modeste in great detail. The striker cried many tears, the coach gave him gentle consolation, and a sentimental song was playing from the stadium boxes, which is about the stars dancing in the sky and about the folk music group that is world-famous in Cologne Klüngelköpp originates. So it was a moment that couldn’t be found anywhere else on earth.
With his goal in the 87th minute, Modeste had helped 1. FC Köln to win 1-0 against VfB Stuttgart, but after the final whistle he did not shed tears of joy, but sorrow, because the anniversary of the death of the Father’s third anniversary. The evening was “emotional” for him, explained the Frenchman, and according to his story it was also a bit occult, because the goal scorer felt the support of a good spirit at the crucial moment of the game: “I think there was in this action my papa there for me. “
If that’s true, Guy Modeste, once central defender at AS St. Etienne, who died early at the age of 64, would have posthumously earned the great billy goat medal, especially since this Modeste Junior headed goal was not a standard corner-headed ready-made product, but a one-of-a-kind Brand “inimitable”, as the Cologne sports director Jörg Jakobs found. The striker had to take a step backwards so he could focus on Kingsley Schindler’s flank, and then it was a matter of timing: jump, aim, head. Everything went to perfection, and a 0-0 game without a profit suddenly turned into a game that symbolically rounded off the first half of the season for both sides: The Cologne team feel they are progressing, the Stuttgart team confirms that they are despite of repeated setbacks. They don’t lack much. The late defeat and the slipping onto the relegation place had no noticeable effect on the deeply calm VfB coach Pellegrino Matarazzo: “We will attack in the second half of the season,” he promised.
Modeste sends a kind of declaration of love to Baumgart: “Almost the same squad, but everything changed with a great coach.”
As is well known, the principle of attacking is also the core of Steffen Baumgart’s teaching, and the coach can state that his team has understood him. In the 3-2 draw in Wolfsburg last Tuesday, Cologne was not satisfied with the fact that they had equalized, and on Sunday they did not stop chasing the winning goal, although some players had visibly heavy legs. “There was an incredible amount of what distinguished us in the first half of the season in that goal,” said sports director Jakobs. This half year was “just crazy,” said Modeste in the course of a declaration of love, which read as follows: “Almost the same squad, but everything changed with a great coach.”
The 33-year-old Frenchman scored eleven goals in the first half of the season, about eleven goals more than the club’s experts had expected in the summer. The stubborn trainer saw it differently and developed with his dual therapy from solid everyday work and applied soul science from the expensive boarder into a valuable scorer. The high annual salary is no longer up for debate. “Tony has a run like no other,” commented defender Timo Hübers, who came to Cologne from the second division in the summer and had prepared himself for a relegation battle: “The majority of Cologne would not have expected 25 points.”
The surprising result is not only due to the suddenly awakened center forward. There are quite a few other footballers in the Cologne squad who now miraculously surpass their values valued in the summer: The notoriously incomplete midfield talent Salih Öczan, who was awarded to Kiel in the second division last year because of embarrassment, is now not only one reliable gripping clearer with a playful touch, but also the regular player he should have been for three or four years; the technician Louis Schaub, whom FC saw in better hands in Switzerland than at Geißbockheim, is now just as much a reinforcement as Schindler, who would have been gladly left at the Hannover 96 loan club.
The hit “Modeste / Modeste / Anthony Modeste” was played on the streets of Cologne late on Sunday evening. Baumgart did not sing along, however: “Tony does. Tony does, Tony works. But he cannot do it alone. He crowns what we all work together,” says the coach.