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Cologne (dpa) - His previous players got free on Monday, the club may already present the successor: After 18 months, the Markus Gisdol era at 1. FC Köln is over.
Just a few hours after the bitter 3-2 defeat against FSV Mainz 05 and the fall on a relegation zone, the Rhenish club announced the immediate release of the head coach shortly before midnight.
“There are now six games left until the end of the season in which we absolutely want to achieve our goal of staying up.
To do this, we need to get results.
In this regard, we have stagnated over the past few weeks.
With a change of coach, we want to give the team a new impetus for this crucial phase with a new constellation, ”said FC managing director Horst Heldt.
The club will provide timely information about the successor, according to the announcement.
One of Gisdol's many predecessors may get the job: According to reports, veteran Friedhelm Funkel could take on the task of keeping the club from moving into the second division.
Gisdol needed a win against their immediate rivals FSV Mainz 05, but in the end there was an unfortunate defeat with the Mainz winning goal in stoppage time by Leandro Barreiro (90 + 2).
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After Gisdol remained motionless immediately after the game and then gave his players an emotionless slap, the 51-year-old quickly disappeared into the catacombs.
It was his last appearance as an FC coach in the Cologne stadium.
«The team, my coaching team and I have invested everything right to the end in order to achieve good results with good performances.
We didn't succeed after the derby (against Borussia Mönchengladbach).
I deliberately say that because we didn't reward each other in the games despite the good phases, ”said the coach after his 51st and last Bundesliga game at 1. FC Köln.
He could not win the last eight, in the table the team has dropped to penultimate place, three points behind a saving place.
Heldt, who had previously given the coach an ultimatum from week to week, thanked Gisdol for the overall good work.
"He took over here in November 2019 in an almost hopeless situation and with a sensational series up to the beginning of the pandemic laid the foundation for relegation - and achieved it together with our team," said the sports director.
So now it could sparkle again.
The 67-year-old was on leave at Fortuna Düsseldorf at the beginning of 2020 and actually wanted to end his coaching career.
He was hired as a rescuer in Cologne in 2002, but could not prevent relegation at the time.
But he immediately managed to get promoted again with FC.
In the 2003/04 season he was released after ten games.
This time he should judge it in six games.
In Düsseldorf they no longer believed he could do that and the team then relegated under his successor Uwe Rösler.
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Announcement 1. FC Cologne