Toni Leistner had more than two hours of high-performance cup fighting behind him; he had fought through the game with all his physical strength like a gladiator through the evening program in the Circus Maximus. And if he had had the opportunity, the Hertha BSC defender would have spoiled the game for another two hours with 1. FC Köln’s constantly attacking team with tackles, freeing moves and constantly getting in the way.
But now, taken out of the competition by the final whistle, demoralized by the defeat, four steps in the stadium in Cologne-Müngersdorf presented an almost insurmountable obstacle. As laboriously as Leistner climbed down these steps, he no longer looked like a 34-year-old professional footballer , but like an old man who struggles with every step.
“This Leistner,” Cologne coach Gerhard Struber later said, was a player “we don’t want to see like that anymore.” The seemingly unfriendly explanation was of course actually a big compliment – the guy was really annoying, Struber could have said. Normally he prefers to devote his attention to his own players, said the Austrian coach, “but this Leistner caught my eye,” piercingly and painfully. Thanks to Leistner’s organization and commitment, the Berliners withstood Cologne’s superiority for more than a hundred minutes – after a quarter of an hour, Hertha’s defender Deyovaisio Zeefuik, as Hertha manager Benjamin Weber correctly stated, “messed up” and earned himself and his team an absolutely senseless expulsion. Only when the penalty shootout was already within reach did the Berlin Wall fall: due to an unfortunate mishap when Hertha’s substitute Gustav Christensen kicked Cologne’s Florian Kainz in the penalty area. In the 119th minute.
The dramaturgical highlight of the evening was concentrated in two ways in the following penalty: because Cologne made it 2-1 and averted the penalty shootout with a penalty, and because Dejan Ljubicic put the ball into the goal. The Austrian midfielder whose special shooting technique and nerves were later praised so much by his teammates, but who so miserably missed the shot into the empty goal in the 100th minute that sports director Christian Keller spoke of “slapstick”. Ljubicic explained the failure with a mental error: In his mind he had already pushed the ball into the goal. In reality, he misjudged the shot and slipped on the ball. A suffering groan went through the packed stadium. The Cologne team had been surrounding the Berlin penalty area for so long, but good chances to score had remained rare, and the picture only changed towards the end of the game. But now Hertha goalkeeper Tjark Ernst suddenly stood out – from Cologne’s point of view, a very bad sign for the impending penalty shootout. Until Ljubicic finally scored.
The club has now announced the extension of the contract with the controversial sports director Keller – a political maneuver?
It has been 15 years since 1. FC Köln last made it to the quarter-finals of the DFB Cup. He “read about it in the history books,” said Manager Keller with a smile that also contained a bit of a feeling of triumph. The contract extension of the now highly controversial sports director, announced by the club on Tuesday, is interpreted in the Cologne media as a political maneuver by the board, which is expecting his imminent replacement, and as an expression of an ongoing leadership crisis. It was all the more convenient for Keller that he could point to the sporting turnaround for the better. The relegated team is back on track in the second league and is successful in the cup.
Coach Struber had also been questioned a few weeks ago. But after he gave his team a new concept, it asserted itself with less enjoyable but effective football. Just like on Wednesday evening, when Hertha BSC was more laboriously defeated than outplayed. For Struber, who had previously been rather reserved and insecure in his demeanor, the exciting cup evening was a liberating experience: “Somewhere,” he said, “it’s a huge relief and at the same time a huge joy that we achieved such a cool number.”
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