Would the real Cologne please stand up?

Is it the team who dispatched both Leverkusen and Hoffenheim with astonishing ease in the final two weeks of September, leading fans to dream of finally getting through a season without a relegation battle?

Or was it the squad who turned up in the German capital on Saturday?

"We were beyond bottom-of-the-barrel," Cologne keeper Michael Rensing said, after Hertha thumped the visitors 3-0. "But let's not get overly excited: you can't win them all."

Cologne may haye only dropped three points, but the way they did it was puzzling and perhaps revealing. All at once, the Billy Goats reverted to the sort of defensive haplessness that saw them in last place, with one point and a -7 goal differential, after the third round of this season.

Cologne coach Stale Solbakken seemed to want to ward off those memories with an incredibly optimistic post-game analysis.

"We made one, two or three major mistakes, and Hertha exploited them very well," the Norwegian told reporters. "Hertha didn't have many chances, but they used them, and we had trouble creating goal-scoring chances."

In fact, Hertha had two further goals disallowed, one when the ball was judged to have been a millimeter over the end-line before the decisive pass, and another after a marginal foul. Cologne, on the other hand, only generated a single good shot on goal, in the second half, after the match was as good as decided.

So what's the real story behind the enigma from the Rhine?

Zonal marking, or maybe not

The line on Cologne's rough start to the season was that the players were having difficulties adjusting to, or perhaps even understanding Solbakken's system. Unlike most coaches, Solbakken favors a zone defense that means fullbacks don't necessarily come out of the area to double team players with the ball on the wings.

At least most football observers think that's what Solbakken means. Cologne began cluelessly, and pundits already had the Norwegian looking for a new job, before the Billy Goats reeled off three wins in four games.

"We've finally understood him," Cologne star Lukas Podolski proclaimed ahead of the Hertha match.

But in Berlin, Cologne looked disoriented. Right back Andrezinho was content to let Hertha winger Änis Ben-Natira run at and then by him, leading to the initial two - and almost three - goals.

Center backs Kevin McKenna and Henrique Sereno seemed unsure of who was responsible for 19-year-old striker Pierre-Michel Lasogga, and he bagged a brace before the half-hour mark.

And the entire team looked happy to watch as a free kick taken near the halfway line slowly made its way into the area for playmaker Raffael to volley home.

So was this a reversion to a confusion Cologne thought they had overcome, or was it a step back toward a strategy that didn't work in the first place?

More freedom not a bad thing

The result that really got Cologne fans' pulses racing was the club's 4-1 away thrashing of the hated Bayer Leverkusen two rounds ago. Ahead of that match, Solbakken said he was giving his right and left backs a bit more freedom to interpret their roles.

Whether or not that was the reason, Cologne went on to play effective flowing football - not just against their local rivals but also versus Hoffenheim a week later.

Podolski and strike partner Milivoje Novakovic, by far and away Cologne's most effective offensive weapons, particularly profited.

Cologne were fairly good in swiftly advancing the ball upfield in Berlin, but could never succeed in getting a numbers advantage. In the end, Hertha had three times as many shots on goal as the visitors, even through Cologne had more of the ball.

So the key for Cologne may be to stick with Solbakken's system, but not too rigidly. Hertha had success with long passes out to the flanks that got the ball into areas where Cologne look most vulnerable and kept their exterior defenders from pushing into positions where they themselves could become dangerous.

For years Cologne have been and up-and-down team. Solbakken was brought in, at least in part, to change that. But the complexity of the coach's system likely means that the Billy Goats will still be susceptible this season to sudden, inexplicable reversals of fortune.

Cologne can now use the international break to try to regroup and recover the esprit they lost in Berlin. After that the experiment will continue - for how long, no one knows.

Author: Jefferson Chase
Editor: Matt Hermann