2nd match day: Despite Werner’s goal in the crisis: Leipzig false start perfect

Timo Werner is back and scores – but RB Leipzig is slipping into crisis. Three competitive games this season, no win yet: That has never happened under coach Domenico Tedesco.

The 2: 2 (1: 1) against 1. FC Köln reflected what had recently been indicated in the 3: 5 in the Supercup against FC Bayern and in the 1: 1 against VfB Stuttgart: RB has a decent defensive Problem. It’s so big that club boss Oliver Mintzlaff even attested to the team’s remaining defense being unsuitable for the Bundesliga, especially in the first half.

Goalkeeper help when Werner hits

Timo Werner was expressly excluded from this verbal sweeping attack. “He’s certainly not at 100 percent, but nobody expected that,” said Mintzlaff. The chairman of the board would have given the national player’s debut a grade of three, maybe two minus. “But there is more to it than that,” said Mintzlaff.

Werner knew that too, and he made his debut with a goal, but he also knew that his shot should never have found its way into the goal. Marvin Schwäbe in the Kölner Tor simply let the ball slide under him. “The probability that he would go in was probably two percent,” joked the 26-year-old shooter.

Before the game he was told that only those who shoot will score. “I remembered that during the campaign,” revealed Werner, who knew after three training sessions with his new colleagues that not everything could work out there. “But together with Dani Olmo and Christopher Nkunku, we’ve exuded a certain amount of danger,” he said.

RB coach Tedesco had asked the returnee if he was ready. “We didn’t really know how he was, even though he’s been through all the preparation at Chelsea. We had very little data on him so a game like this is very useful to see where he is at the moment,” he said the RB coach who took Werner off after 67 minutes.

FC comes back twice

Werner and Nkunku’s goals were not enough against Cologne’s excellently adjusted and playing team, who made a more united impression as a team than the hosts, because Cologne came back twice through Florian Dietz and an own goal from Josko Gvardiol. “Of course it’s a crappy start with two points from two games, we had imagined it quite differently,” complained Mintzlaff. “With all due respect, we have to aim to beat Stuttgart and Cologne with our squad.”

The coach now has a lot of work ahead of the encounters against Union and Dortmund, according to Mintzlaff. Tedesco himself rated the start after two games as a false start, but looked further. “Our games weren’t bad. We should have won in Stuttgart, but we didn’t score the goals. And the two goals should have been enough here. We’re not defending well at the moment,” said Tedesco.

His Cologne colleague Steffen Baumgart, on the other hand, was enthusiastic. The individual class of RB was opposed to team unity. “The draw is at least deserved,” said Baumgart, indicating that he wouldn’t have felt it was unfair if his team won.

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