Fortuna Cologne and 1. FC Bocholt drew 1-1. Both teams ended up playing with ten men.
It was not until the eighth minute of stoppage time that substitute Luca Majetic scored the long-awaited equalizer in front of 2,379 spectators in Fortuna Cologne’s home game against 1. FC Bocholt. The score remained 1-1.
“The first half went to Bocholt, and the 0-1 score impressed us a little. The goal we conceded was the result of a mistake in our build-up play, and we made several of those at the beginning. The second half was completely on our side. Many things improved, such as tackling and positional play. With ten against ten, we played our opponents off the park, but then we left too much out of the game. The game could have gone on for a few minutes longer,” said coach Matthias Mink, who made two changes to the starting lineup: Kevin Brechmann started on the right side of defense for the injured Vleron Statovci. Captain Robin Afamefuna, who had recovered from injury, replaced Younes Derbali on the left side of defense in the starting lineup.
While the first 45 minutes belonged to the visitors from Münsterland, Cologne set the tone in the second half.
In the end, as described above, Majetic pushed a corner from Jonas Michelbrink over the line with his back from close range. “You can’t learn that, it just comes naturally to me. I like taking corners, but you also need a bit of luck,“ said former Duisburg player Michelbrink later with a laugh, adding: ”We got off to a good start in the second half, but we had a few teething problems in the first half. It’s a shame we didn’t win in the end, but when you come back from 0-1 down, you can take the point. It was a fair result.“
Christopher Schorch, the visitors’ team manager, saw it similarly: ”We started well and sat back a little after going 1-0 up, which worked well at first. After the pyrotechnics in the middle of the second half, we lost our rhythm. Then we played timidly and invited Fortuna to attack. In the end, the draw was a lucky result.”
Fortuna Cologne: Winkler – Afamefuna, Fischer, Al-Azzawe, Brechmann (90.+5 Derbali), Geerkens (87. Hekmat), Stanilewicz, Garcia (76. Majetic), Thier (76. Michelbrink), Al Ghaddioui, Wirtz (87. Bornemann)
1. FC Bocholt: Fox – Riedel, Batarilo, Holldack (81. Hirschberger), Adamski, Hanke, Budimbu, Mensah, Lorch (90.+3, Bayakala), Carls (90.+3, Amedick), Dörfler (67. Kurzen)
Referee: Nils Hasse
Goals: 0:1 Carls (13.), 1:1 Majetic (90.+8)
Attendance: 2,379
Yellow-red cards: Adamski (Bocholt, 66.), Stanilewicz (70.)