A real invasion from Leverkusen was on the cards and the non-stop trams struggled to cope with the masses. At the kick off, there were 30,000 spectators at the stadium including at least 5,000 from Leverkusen. FC Köln immediately took charge and dominated possession. Frenetically driven on, the hosts created chance after chance but the Leverkusen defence around Habets and Frömmel along with goalkeeper Mutz offered brave resistance.
After the first half hour, Bayer 04 mounted the occasional attack and took a 1-0 lead on 33 minutes with a low shot from Emil 'Bubi' Becks. Shortly after that, the same player hammered the ball against the underside of the Köln crossbar – Leverkusen deservedly took a lead into half-time.
Köln came out fighting in the second half as they looked for the equaliser. However, they were brought to a juddering halt by their own defender Langen with an overhit back pass that the FC Köln goalkeeper de Munck was unable to reach.
The Bayer team defended the 2-0 lead with all they had and deservedly left the pitch as winners. The newcomers were now second in the table behind Rot-Weiß Essen.
Here are the line-ups of the two teams:
Köln: de Munck – Langen, Graf, Mebus, Schütz, Gawliczek, Becker, Alexius, Schemmerling, Röhrig, Schäfer
Bayer 04: Mutz – Habets, Frömmel, Nußbaum, Röger, Dr. Wichelhaus, Brecht, Spikofski, Becks, Flohr, Wiorek
Tranquillo Barnetta was born in St. Gallen in Switzerland on 22 May 1985. Quillo, as he was called in the football world, has Italian roots. His great-grandfather emigrated from Italy to the east of Switzerland. Quillo was interested in football early on and he played for the St. Gallen club FC Rotmonten from the age of six. He joined his favourite club FC St. Gallen at the age of 11. There he became a youth international. He won the European Championships with his teammates in the Switzerland U17 team in 2002. The youngsters from Switzerland beat France 4-2 on penalties in the final to become U17 European champions.
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