So there they were, Baumi and Rosi, a loser and a winner, and yet both seemed somehow happy after Borussia Dortmund's 2-0 win over 1. FC Köln.

Steffen Baumgart, the trainer for the Rhinelander, and Marco Rose, his colleague from the Revierklub, have been friends since they met in 2014 during their training at the Hennes-Weisweiler Academy.

The whole course, which also included colleagues like Torsten Frings and Florian Kohfeldt, will take place on November 11th.

meet in Cologne for a carnival celebration.

The disguises that are supposed to prevent the famous men from being recognized have already been set, and the Bundesliga duel of the friends on Saturday will not affect the mood at the opening of the session in any way. On the contrary, the mutual respect is enormous. “With everything that happened with the ball, you have to say that FC were the better team,” said Rose, praising Baumgart, who gladly accepted the friendly words and was quite cheerful even without points: “Until I am satisfied with a lot of the result. A lot of what we set out to do worked, ”he said.

Rarely do two coaches seem so connected at the press conference after a game.

When Rose was asked about his striker Stefan Tigges at some point, he initially replied with a smile: "Baumi thinks it is also very good," to which the Cologne coach interjected: "You didn't give it to me." Baumgart finally had it in the summer Rose called to ask if it was conceivable to let the 1.93-meter-tall attacker switch to FC.

Vain.

Cologne appearance gives courage

Now Tigges had headed the 2-0 for BVB after a good hour and made a decisive contribution to the victory with his first Bundesliga goal.

A success that the Dortmund team celebrated even without a particularly good performance as an important step on the way to a great goal.

For the first time in this Bundesliga season, the team had not conceded a goal, "that was about time," said goalkeeper Gregor Kobel.

The fact that this premiere succeeded on that day, however, was strange, given the 19 shots on goal that Cologne had fired.

Anthony Modeste alone wasted half a dozen good graduation opportunities.

"We were dangerous, but we lacked the necessary consistency in the end today," said Cologne captain Jonas Hector, whose team has now been without a win for the third time in a row and continues to slide in the table.

But the team's style of play nourishes the belief in further successes, Dortmund defender Thomas Meunier explained: "I have to be honest: I didn't expect Cologne to be so strong, their play structure was really good."

BVB's game was less convincing. As so often in the past few weeks, the team made a number of simple mistakes in the flow of combinations. Again and again the Dortmunders destroyed their counterattacks through inaccuracies and wrong decisions. All of this can be "explained when you see who is missing," said Rose, whose team currently rarely plays really strong, but has made decisive progress: BVB often wins without fully developing its own potential.

Despite many problems, Borussia is only one point behind FC Bayern in the table, has collected 24 out of 30 possible points and can win games without the badly injured Erling Haaland - with simple means. The first goal came after a long pass from their own half, which landed over Brandt and Bellingham on Hazard's head and from there in the gate (40th).

And when Cologne attacked more and more resolutely after the break, Tigges headed a Brandt corner to make it 2-0 into the goal (62nd). BVB won this home game against the relegation candidate from the Rhineland with the means of an outsider, but that did not bother Rose. The coach said “a huge compliment” to his team because the many players, weakened by injuries, manage to “collect points in this difficult situation and advance in the cup”.

However, there is a fine line that Rose and his team are treading. On the one hand, it cannot be denied that in addition to injured executives (Haaland, Guerreiro, Reyna, Dahoud, Can) many players were weakened by wounds or illnesses. On the other hand, Dortmund cannot afford to keep complaining about such problems without improving their performance. The fact that only goalkeeper Kobel, central defender Manuel Akanji and midfielder Jude Bellingham are constantly playing at a high level is not enough for a club with BVB ambitions, because the opponents are getting better.

Next weekend there is a league duel at RB Leipzig, this Wednesday Ajax Amsterdam will be visiting Dortmund.

"We have to show a positive reaction," said Meunier, alluding to the 4-0 dismantling in the first leg and explained: "Sure, Ajax are a great team, but we are Borussia Dortmund." However, this self-confident BVB is still on the Searching for his new identity under a trainer who is not teasingly but very respectfully called "Rosi" by his buddies.