Cologne and Borussia Mönchengladbach had to share the points in the 100th Rhine derby, with the historic encounter seeing two teams desperate for points serve up a six-goal thriller, which created even more history in the process.
With both Cologne and Gladbach struggling at the bottom end of the table, the sides could have been forgiven had the 100th Rhine derby been a cagey, tense affair short on excitement and high in anxiety.
However, with both sides desperate for a pressure-relieving three points rather than taking home one each, we got the exact opposite.
Jens Castrop and Saïd El Mala both scored against their former clubs within the opening five minutes to get derby day off to an electric start. A long way from their academy days at the sides who were now their opponents in the fight for Bundesliga survival, both El Mala and Castrop proved they were more than capable of getting their sides out of trouble and performing under pressure.
Watch: Cologne 3-3 Borussia M’gladbach
As impressive as they both were, this game spoke more broadly to the entertaining and unpredictable nature of the league, which saw two stumbling sides score six goals, the first three of which were the fastest trio in the history of the derby. Even more absurd was the fact that those three opening goals came from the first three shots of the match!
Cologne‘s Marvin Schwäbe did his best to put this historic encounter into words: “You go into the game with that feeling, because it’s a derby, because the atmosphere is tense. Both teams are a bit further down in the table, which means there’s obviously a lot at stake. The atmosphere was awesome.”
The Billy Goats and the Foals entertained to a level not seen for decades, with the last time four goals were scored in the first half of the Rhine derby in the Bundesliga coming on 14 November 1984, when Cologne lost 5-1 to their fierce rivals, having gone into half-time already four goals down.
While the focus in the aftermath of this result lies mainly on the pure chaos caused by both sides‘ clinical finishing, Cologne and their sporting director Thomas Kessler have other priorities.
“To be honest, we’ve reached a point where we simply need to get three points again,“ said Kessler. “Unfortunately, we’ve been going through a long dry spell, and we can see from the table that this point isn’t enough.“
“We need to analyse this objectively and rationally; we have an international break coming up. We’ll consider this, and I’ll sleep on it.”
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