With the third derby win in a row, 1. FC Köln secured a direct place in the European Cup for at least 24 hours and dealt Borussia Mönchengladbach a sensitive setback.
Coach Steffen Baumgart's team won 3-1 (3-0) at Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday evening with a confident and convincing performance, moving up to sixth place in the Bundesliga.
The four games undefeated hosts, on the other hand, missed a leap forward.
Most recently, more than 30 years ago, the Cologne team won three Bundesliga wins in a row against Gladbach.
In front of 54,042 spectators in the sold-out Borussia Park, Anthony Modeste (5th), Florian Kainz (20th) and Dejan Ljubicic (34th) scored the goals for the guests.
Breel Embolo (85th) scored for Borussia.
Gladbach fans had to wait almost five years for their derby before they were allowed back into Borussia Park.
For the first time since December 2019, the Gladbach stadium was completely sold out for a Bundesliga game.
Both fan blocks loudly created a great derby atmosphere in the stadium.
The Gladbach team had to do without Marcus Thuram (muscular problems), who was once again a goal threat, and Jonas Hofmann was back in the starting line-up for him.
Birthday boy Ramy Bensebaini should cause danger on the left.
At first, however, only the Cologne team, who started with Salih Özcan and Dejan Ljubic in the starting XI, were dangerous.
Both played a big part in the win after coming on as substitutes in the game against Mainz.
With the first attack on the left, Kainz brought center forward Modeste into play, who scored the 1-0 for FC with his 60th Bundesliga goal from close range.
It was Modeste's fourth goal against Gladbach, who turned 34 on Thursday.
After falling behind, the hosts mainly had problems when Cologne attacked from the outside positions.
This was also the case with Kainz making it 2-0, who used a cross from Mark Uth to score the second goal for the guests.
Borussia's game was flawed with inaccuracies in passing and tackles.
In addition, national player Matthias Ginter had to pass early due to injury.
Hofmann missed the best chances (28'/60'), who narrowly missed the goal twice.
The well-adjusted Cologne team did much better and took a clear lead through Ljubicic before the break.
Borussia never recovered from that.
With Christoph Kramer and the two youngsters Joe Scally and Luca Netz, Gladbach's coach Adi Hütter tried to improve things by changing staff.
But after good performances recently, the eleventh in the table in the derby disappointed across the board and found no suitable means against the better Cologne.