Cologne’s Timo Horn has saved a penalty against Augsburg for the second time this season since Anthony Modeste’s late goals and Philipp Max saw each side leave with one point.
The home side, just above the play-off relegation spot, came in three points behind the visitors in Sunday’s battle. And it was they who had the best of opening minutes, with Florian Niederlechner forcing Timo Horn to save a few goods saves on Cologne No.1. The Billy Goats failed to assemble a shot on target in the first half, but Ismail Jakobs went closest with a header over the target from close range
Niederlechner had the perfect chance to beat Horn when, 27 minutes later, his side won a penalty, and Horn tripped Noah Sarenren-Bazee into the box. But Horn went from zero to hero with a superb save to keep the top scorer from 12 yards on Augsburg-just as he did in the reverse fixture when he saved Andre Hahn ‘s spot-kick.
The set pieces from Augsburg’s wing-back Philipp Max caused a lot of problems for the Cologne defense but just before the half-time whistle, he couldn’t find the target with a free-kick.
In the second half, Cologne put up a much better fight with the home side not loving the opportunities they had on target in the opening 45. Around the hour mark, Andreas Luthe was called into action twice in the Augsburg net, first clearing a risky Mark Uth cross and then denying Jakobs as he slid a shot from Florian Kainz ‘s ball to Augsburg’s back post to the net.
The home side failed to record a shot on goal in the second half while Jhon Cordoba was trying to hunt for a goal on the other end, but home side defense was up for battle.
Córdoba gave way to Modeste with less than 10 minutes to play and it only took three minutes for the Frenchman to make an impact. A left-footed half-volley moved across Luthe from just inside the Augsburg box and into the far bottom corner. Modeste felt he was winning but Max ‘s thoughts were different.
The wing-back was up from behind to meet Raphael Framberger’s lobbed cross and slot the ball past Horn to give his side a critical point right at the death.
