📸 How did that stay out? Cologne get huge luck against VfB | OneFootball

As recently as last week against Bayern, Stuttgart’s Josha Vagnoman somewhat unwillingly became the unlucky hero of the day when he first scored the equalizer and shortly afterward unfortunately put the ball into his own net.

And in his team’s currently ongoing second Bundesliga match, the spotlight is once again on him in the opening minutes — and again not necessarily in the most positive way.

In the 9th minute, El Khannouss set the ball up for himself on the left side of the box and crossed into the six-yard area, where Vagnoman was completely unmarked and got his shot away — from around two meters out.

But instead of putting the ball into the net with his first touch, he smashed it with the inside of his foot from close range against the underside of the crossbar, from where the ball bounced back into play.

Cruel tongues would say: hitting the crossbar from there was harder than finding the net from that angle.

So Vagnoman really should have given his side the lead — massive luck for Köln right at the start!

That was followed by another effort off the woodwork and another huge Stuttgart chance through Führich.

Even before the break, the inevitable happened. Bilal El Khannouss went on a world-class solo run, danced past several defenders, including with a cheeky nutmeg, and scored the long-overdue 1-0 for the home side (39').

Right in the middle of a Köln spell of pressure after the break, Prömel made it 2-0 (60').

In the 75th minute, Demirovic scored for 3-0 and seemingly put the game to bed.

So Vagnoman’s huge missed chance at the start does not appear likely to come back to haunt Stuttgart, even though Marius Bülter did make it 3-1 (81').

After missing that big chance early on, Vagnoman scored a stunning goal in stoppage time to make it 4-1 and seal it all — so in the end, the circle was complete after all.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

📸 THOMAS KIENZLE - AFP or licensors