1. FC Cologne before the Rhine derby in Düsseldorf: Convincing even in defeat

When Gerhard Struber was about to sign the contract as the new head coach of 1. FC Köln in mid-June, he was coming to an agreement with a club in turmoil and discord. After relegation to the second division, many Cologne residents and many FC members did not want a wind, but rather a storm of change in the Geißbockheim, so that this could blow the self-confident sports director Christian Keller and the board trio around President Werner Wolf away immediately, preferably in the direction of Düsseldorf or at least Leverkusen.

An alternative club management had already formed in the background, or at least the people concerned considered themselves capable of forming an alternative. But the new Austrian citizen Struber did not get the opportunity to get to know the ladies and gentlemen of the opposition around the former Cologne contract player Dieter Prestin. The self-proclaimed FC Future In the end, it did not build up any more clout and influence than the association of Bible-believing Christians in the recent federal election. After a complicated and unpromising self-presentation in a Cologne hotel, public interest in Prestin’s group quickly waned. Then it realized an old human dream: it managed to become invisible.

Gerhard Struber, 47, may have had some thoughts at the time about the dangerous nest he was entering, but if that was the case, he has long since dismissed those concerns. “I am not experiencing any unrest, opposition or external factors – not at all,” he said on Thursday, and it is true: the calls for upheaval and change have completely died down in Cologne. When the general meeting of 1. FC Cologne meets next week, it will not be the special party conference to vote out the authorities that was still being called for everywhere in May and June. Instead, it will be the usual annual meeting with the scheduled agenda. Both the club’s board and manager Keller managed to significantly increase their poll ratings in the summer.

Eighth place in the table does not cause any nervousness because the team convinces with straightforward play

The new coach has also contributed to this. Struber’s team occasionally struggles to score goals, as was evident last Saturday in the unfortunate 1:2 defeat against 1. FC Magdeburg. But they have found their style and their energetic pace and have quickly adapted to the second division. “The trend and development are positive,” says team manager Thomas Kessler. The league table position – eighth place, six points behind the promotion places – does not cause any nervousness, after the Cologne team recently impressed with stringent, straightforward play. Even in defeat.

“Three or four Magdeburg players” later came up to him “to apologize for winning,” reported Cologne left-back Leart Pacarada after the home game loss. However, the opponent’s flattering confessions were of little interest to the determined coach: “The yield is too low for what we achieve,” said Struber, “it’s professional sport, we want results.”

Struber comes from Kuchl in the Salzburg region, where he was most recently a coach. His mission as Red Bull coach ended in his dismissal, however, when it became apparent that RB could lose the championship title that had supposedly been confiscated forever. With him, Salzburg were still in first place, but without him they were runners-up behind Graz. 1. FC Cologne may now benefit from the disgrace of his dismissal, because Struber, as everyone says, is driven by particular ambition and – perhaps because of this – by noticeable assertiveness. Compromises and favors are not characteristics of his coaching work. He relies on the young strike duo of Tim Lemperle and Damion Downs, although the two miss too many chances. The Bundesliga-experienced attackers Stefan Tigges, Sargis Adamyan and Luca Waldschmidt, on the other hand, have had a hard time getting into the team.

Struber, however, has not yet emerged as a person. His compatriot Peter Stöger was already actively involved in the city’s social and community life in his first days as FC coach, but Struber stays out of it. He is “of course now deeply involved in the FC world,” he said, and he has experienced “pure emotion” at the club. But at the moment it still sounds as if professionalism is simply teaching him to say what is appropriate in this place.

He is also not particularly fascinated by the fact that the upcoming match at Fortuna Düsseldorf on Saturday afternoon will be shaped by the tense neighbourly relationship between the two cities, which has been strained for centuries, even if he speaks of “pure rivalry”. It will certainly be explosive; in the Cologne ranking of derbies, this match is second – behind the duel with Mönchengladbach, before the game against Leverkusen. For an appropriate classification, however, Struber prefers to refer to Kessler, who was born in Cologne. And the manager prefers to be cautious when naming the differences: “What should a Cologne resident think of Düsseldorf?” he says, and is glad that he has thought of something: “Some shout Alaaf, others Helau.” He could also have said: The others are top of the table, we want to be.