The last match of the day took place up in the northeastern region of Germany as Köln played hosts to a struggling Hertha BSC. As mentioned, the blue-and-white stripes have found it hard lately to muster any points as they have not won a point in their last three attempt. However, the hosts have soared recently winning three out of their last four matches in league play. But the Bundesliga is always full of surprises and this one was certainly a surprise as Köln fell to the hands of Hertha by a score of 1-2 at the RheinEnergieStadion on Saturday evening.
It took a little while for the first half, but once it did both sides had some good opportunities to give their respective clubs the opening goal. The first real opportunity match came from the hosts as they had a counter, however, Pawel Olkowski was a little too unselfish as he tried to square the ball instead of shooting as he had some room available to get a good look at goal. If anyone looked like scoring it was going to be the Billy Goats. Remember though, in football anything can happen and Hertha struck first shortly before the half an hour mark through Roy Beerens. The Dutch winger made a great run down the right hand side, gave the ball up to Valentin Stocker but got the ball right back as he continued his superb run inside the box and placed it into the far corner. After the goal, the club from the capital city looked to have confidence in them as they controlled the run of play the rest of the half.
As the second 45 minutes kicked off, the game began to be more open with Köln looking to press for that equalizing goal. But the visitors had the first decent chance of the half as Per Skjelbred took a shot from outside of the box, the ball bounced right in front of Timo Horn, but the Köln keeper was able to gather the ball easily. The home side was really giving it their all in the last thirty minutes of play as they felt that they could eventually break down the Hertha defense, but nothing was working. Köln were probing down the left, the right, and through the center of the pitch. Both Matthias Lehmann and Daniel Halfar had long range efforts just minutes apart from each other, but neither shot was on target.
Then Köln had the same nightmare. Hertha struck again, completely against the run of play as it looked certain that the blue-and-white-stripes were going to concede, they took the lead. With just five minutes left on the clock, the visitors were given a costless kick a little ways out from goal, but it wasn't too far. Marcel N'Djeng stepped over the ball, along with two other Hertha footballers, and struck the ball clean, Horn looked to go the right way but the ball took a massive deflection off the wall and it fell into the right corner of the goal, stunning the players and the Billy Goats faithful.