In this post i will guide you through the first half of the season with 1. FC Köln. In my previous post i’ve showed you my tactical plans and now you will see how my team has performed. First we will take a look at the pre-season results and after that we will dive into the German Cup and 2. Bundesliga results.

As you can see on the screenshot above we’ve had pretty decent pre-season. All games except for one turned up in a victory for my team. With 21 goals scored and only two against the tactic seems to be working. Now it’s all flowers and rainbows for some people after seeing this. But i am not that happy and satisfied. All these results are against “weaker/lesser” teams. The only team that had some quality has managed to beat us 0-1. So from my perspective there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. If we really want to win the 2. Bundesliga and get promoted to the 1. Bundesliga we will need to show up and perform game after game.

2. Bundesliga results

My worries after the pre-season seemed unjustified. Our first seventeen games went really well with twelve wins and five draws. Our goalkeeper Timo Horn, together with his defenders, has managed to keep a clean sheet twelve times. That is absolutely amazing and one of the big reasons why we have a solid lead in the 2. Bundesliga. Even when HSV still played one game less we would have a four point lead. Now i know that this is not the biggest lead but it does show how good we are. As long as we keep our heads together and the victories coming in then i am sure we will reach our goals very early on in the second half of the season.

Transfers during the winter

Normally i am not a big fan of doing transfers during the winter transfer window but sometimes your hand get’s forced. Some players have been performing really well where others have not. In the case of Jhon Córdoba it has been injury hell. When i started at Köln Córdoba and Modeste would’ve been my ideal striker duo. Sadly Córdoba has been injured most of the first half of the season. That is why i’ve decided to loan him out to a different club. At Atlético Nacional he can find himself again and as soon as he starts performing again we will recall him back to Köln.

Another surprising transfer was Marco Höger’s departure. This veteran midfielder was even my captain at the start of this season. But somewhere along the road, where everything was positive, Höger became a real negative force within the team. He was constantly complaining, questioning a lot of my decisions so the only option was to remove his negative ass from the club. The other players finally got sold after this didn’t happen at the start of the season. But on the positive side of things, when players leave there is room for new ones. And yes, we did found a few players that can help us achieving our goals in the remainder of the season.

Antonio Sanabria is a 23 year old striker from Paraguay. Due to the fact that Córdoba on loan we needed a new striker. Luckily for us Sanabria was transfer listed so we could get him for a very cheap price. According to my scouts he already perform on 1. Bundesliga level so that will come in very handy. Noah Jean Holm is a eighteen year old Norwegian striker. According to my scouts he can become better than Anthony Modeste and we are willing to take the gamble with this lad. He will play his games in the under 19 squad for the remainder of the season. After that we will see how he has developed and we will figure out a path for his future career. Maybe some of you know Che Nunnely but for those that don’t know him, he is an excellent winger. This 20 year old Dutch lad came over from AFC Ajax and with his pace he will cause some serious threat in our offensive plays. Last but not least we found a new veteran midfielder in Sebastian Rode. The 29 year old German midfielder was sidetracked at Dortmund and for under four million euro’s we managed to sign him on a four year deal. He will replace Höger who left the club and we will see how that goes in the second half of the season.

Thanks for reading this article! In the next one we will comple our Season One Overview. ‘Till next time …