Said El Mala is THE great hope for 1. FC Köln, who still need to keep picking up points to stay up. Against Leverkusen, things were actually looking very good, but then the match turned in a very cruel way.
Köln started well and applied pressure. Bayer’s Jarell Quansah seemed rattled by it and played a catastrophic back pass to the goalkeeper. El Mala sprinted in between and took the ball past Mark Flekken. All that was left was the empty net, but the forward hit the ball against the post. Granted, it was from a tight angle, but of course he still has to score that.
Even worse for Effzeh: shortly after, Leverkusen were awarded a controversial penalty at the other end. Martel had his arm completely tucked in when Palacios chipped the ball into the box. Martel moved his upper body toward the ball and it struck his arm. Despite strong protests, the penalty was given.
Patrik Schick converted it to make it 1-0 for the Werkself. Instead of taking the lead, Köln now have to go into halftime trailing. The three much-needed points in the fight for survival suddenly seem a long way off again.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
