That one last chance was yet to come, as that’s almost always the case when a team just needs that one goal and tries to force their luck. 47,000 in Cologne-Müngersdorf were waiting for the one big moment, the fans, louder than the fanfares of Jericho, had stopped singing out of feverish tension, and then the chance actually came – in the third minute of stoppage time. But the man who stood in the six-yard box and had the 3-2 win for 1. FC Köln against OGC Nice on his head was Benno Schmitz.
The honorable right-back Schmitz, 27, has already played more than 160 games in Salzburg, Leipzig and Cologne in the course of his professional career, but he last scored a goal eight and a half years ago as a youth player, in a 6-0 win over FC Bayern’s second team SV Seligenporten in the Regionalliga Bayern. As Steffen Baumgart reported later, Schmitz promised his coach a long time ago that he would finally score a goal again. But when the ideal occasion came, Baumgart was under no illusions: “Oh, I don’t know,” he said of his expectations at that moment: “I don’t have that much faith in Benno’s header game.”
If Schmitz had converted Linton Maina’s cross, Cologne would have advanced to the round of 16 of the Conference League as the group’s first. They would have saved themselves the intermediate round and would not have gotten back in until March. In this respect, all those who said on Thursday evening that maybe it would be better to concentrate entirely on the domestic league said gross nonsense.
Coach Baumgart says he is “overjoyed to be able to work here”
The coach wanted to continue the trip to Europe, the team wanted it, and all of Cologne on the Rhine wanted it too. Baumgart did not blame Schmitz for the fact that it was not enough despite the rousing race to catch up, but rather the technical problems that stood in the way of his team in the duel with Lucien Favre’s luxurious team. “Unfortunately, today there were one or two mistakes too many,” said Baumgart, before immediately expressing his love: He was “thrilled” about the performance and the mentality of his team and therefore “overjoyed to be able to work here”.
These are big words, especially in the context of an allegedly insignificantly small competition. But the Conference League, which is often underestimated as superfluous in this country, has proven its value in Cologne. The ovations of the visitors during the team’s lap of honor had Scottish proportions, the applause pattering like warm May rain.
“It was just beautiful,” said Baumgart. Only the bureaucracy of Uefa annoyed him: There are “very, very many things” where he thought: “People, get your suppository out of your butt and relax a bit. It’s about football.” Uefa will certainly gratefully take up the advice.