“Ridiculous”: El Mala criticises Leverkusen

After losing the derby against Bayer Leverkusen, frustration ran deep at 1. FC Köln. “It feels rubbish, of course,” said a disheartened Said El Mala. Then, following the 1–2 (0–1) defeat, the international player launched into a criticism of the clinical Werkself. “Every time there was a foul, they rolled around I don’t know how many times. In my opinion, that’s got nothing to do with football; it’s actually a bit ridiculous. But if the ref makes those calls, what can you do?” lamented El Mala to DAZN.

Football is “still a fair-play sport – and when someone’s down and the Leverkusen players carry on playing, I just can’t get my head round why they do that. I simply can’t wrap my head around it,” criticised El Mala.

Specifically, the incident in question occurred in the 50th minute: After Mikey Moore had gone down, Cologne appealed for a penalty and, out of consideration for the injured player, attempted to play the ball out of play. However, Leverkusen pressed forward and stole the ball. This led to furious challenges, a heated atmosphere and a scuffle breaking out.

Earlier, Leverkusen’s Aleix Garcia had put the visitors ahead (7th minute). Patrik Schick doubled the lead (86th minute), whilst El Mala’s consolation goal (90+2) came “unfortunately a bit too late”, said the goalscorer, who had been set up by his brother Malek with a perfect cross. “You can’t play any better than that; I’m naturally delighted for both of us, but I’d have preferred to have the three points,” said Said El Mala.

FC thus suffered their first home defeat in six matches across all competitions and are still unable to pull decisively clear of the relegation zone. Following the mammoth task away at Bayern Munich (20 November), they face crucial fixtures against newly promoted SV Elversberg (28 November) and FC Augsburg (5 December).