Even without coach Steffen Baumgart, who was infected with Corona, 1. FC Köln continued its upward trend in the Bundesliga and is now a serious candidate for the European Cup.
The team from Cologne, coached by co-trainer André Pawlak, won 1-0 (1-0) against SC Freiburg and moved up to one point behind the fifth-placed Freiburg team.
The goal scorer of the day was once again Anthony Modeste with his 14th goal of the season (23rd) in front of the allowed 10,000 spectators.
Freiburg's unlucky person was the otherwise strong national player Nico Schlotterbeck, who made a mistake and then found himself offside when Roland Sallai supposedly equalized (49').
Baumgart and Pawlak had agreed on two personnel changes.
Mark Uth and, for the first time since the 10th matchday, Jan Thielmann started for Ondrej Duda and Louis Schaub.
While the starting eleven had been agreed, Baumgart Pawlak had promised a free hand during the game.
Freiburg started with the same starting eleven as before the break in the 2-0 win over Stuttgart.
Pawlak had announced that he did not want to be a Baumgart clone.
And as expressly stated, he was neither wearing his flat cap nor was he standing on the sidelines in a T-shirt, but in a training suit.
And instead of shouting loudly and waving his arms like Baumgart in a sumo wrestler's pose, he followed the game mostly concentrated with folded arms, interrupted by encouraging claps.
Despite the unusual circumstances, the Cologne team started as committed and offensive as is usually the case this season.
But Freiburg, who arrived with the second best defense in the league, defended with concentration.
So after seven minutes there were already three corners for Cologne in the statistics, but the first notable shot on goal of the game did not come until the 20th minute - and that for Freiburg, when Emerdin Demirovic, who was actually willing to leave in the winter, narrowly missed.
Modeste came even closer two minutes later, narrowly missing his tenth header of the season.
A few seconds later he hit with his foot: After a liberation from Luca Kilian, Schlotterbeck misjudged, Thielmann served Modeste and executed ice cold.
Freiburg coach Christian Streich ran calmly onto the field during the Cologne celebrations and disposed of a plastic cup that had been thrown from the stands.
Five minutes after the break, Freiburg initially cheered when Sallai, who had only come on the break, scored, but Schlotterbeck had blocked the sight of keeper Marvin Schwäbe in an offside position.
An exchange of blows then developed.
Freiburg put more pressure on his actions and were better overall.
But Cologne always countered dangerously.
The 2-0 prevented a goal from Florian Kainz from Schlotterbeck on the line (57th).
On the other side, Schwäbe made a strong save against captain Christian Günter (73').