Teufels Ecke / La Esquina Del Diablo / Devil's Corner II

Herzlich Wilkommen zu dem Betzenberg! And, next week, Bayern München will be the first Bundesliga team, since the last four years, that will have to endure the atmosphere of this 'Holy Mountain'. After this past Saturday's staggering win against Colonia, the Red Devil fans will be out in full force. It would be a great sight to see and hopefully GOLTV will broadcast this match. After all, Bayern is playing. Right? And all Lautern fans love to see Bayern lose! However, that is in the future. Let's look at the past, this past Saturday to be exact. Now, the Geissböcke aren't exactly in the top flight of the Bundesliga. Though they do have Lukas Podolski in their squad. And their record in the last 20 years (zero wins) against the Red Devils hasn't been exactly Sterling, but there was some trepidation regarding Kaiserslautern's return to the first-class of the German league. Personally, I would have been happy with a draw, or even to lose by one goal. That would have been a good showing. But perhaps the powers-to-be interfered, for less than two minutes into the match, 1. FC Köln defender Mohamad was served with a straight red card for a "Notbremse" (emergency brake) just outside of his penalty area. I couldn't believe the sounds coming from my laptop speakers (I was listening to the match, in German, being broadcast by bundesliga.de). What a gift that was handed to the Devils... However, less than 10 minutes later, Köln forward Novakovic scored due to a mishandled ball by Kaiserslautern keeper Tobias Sippel. It was Sippel's first Bundesliga match, and hopefully by now he will be over the butterflies. For the next major portion of the match Kaiserslautern seemed unable to get any coordinated attacks together. Köln continued to press, and Sippel made an excellent save from a free kick by Lukas Podolski. For the second half Marco Kurz made a couple of substitutions, replacing Bugera with Leon Jessen on the left defense (something that never happened last season, and was disconcerting to say the least) and bringing in Ilicevic in place of Oliver Kirch for more attacking power. These moves seemed to work their magic as Srdjan Lakic scored in the 70th. By now, Kaiserslautern dominated play and their constant attacks on goal resulted in two more goals, one more by Lakic in the 84th minute, and another by Ilicevic in the 88th minute. The Köln fans were already leaving the stadium and the Lautern fans could be clearly heard chanting "F-C-K...F-C-K". Which is sort of odd, because those are also Köln's initials, but there was no question to whom this was directed. It was an unbelievable start for the Devils. Our goal is to just not be relegated, and these three points may be invaluable. Hopefully this momentum can be carried into the Fritz Walter Stadion against Bayern. Come on Bayern, we want you to suffer! Wilkommen zu der Hölle! :twisted: