FC Köln striker vaults a fence to show appreciation to fans

Those who dipsair at Emmanuel Adebayor’s attitude and Gary Neville’s defence of outrageous salaries can find solace in Lukas Podolski.

The Polish-born German national team striker played for FC Köln from the age of ten, but was begrudgingly sold in 2003 when Bayern Munich turned up with an irresistible €10m cheque. When the arrival of Luca Toni pushed him down the pecking order in Munich, however, Podolski returned to his childhood club for a similar €10m fee. Such was the Cologne fans’ love of their returning hero that they set up a website in order to raise money to fund the re-signing.

Since his return to North Rhine-Westphalia, Podolski has reciprocated the love shown to him by fans. Last night, FC Köln caused an upset in the DFB-Pokal cup (the German equivalent of the FA Cup)

Ach Mein Gott! Zis party rocks, ja!

After finishing in ninth place in the Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen fell short of their target of reaching the prestigious Europa League by some way. Furthermore, the mid-table side compounded their league failure on Saturday, by losing the DFB-Pokal final (the German equivalent of the FA Cup final where the winner receives an Aztec Pimp Cup) to Bundesliga champions VfL Wolfsburg [that’ll be fellow mid-tablers Werder Bremen, actually - Ed.].

So, how did Leverksuen deal with their disappointing season? They threw a gigantic party, of course!

Straight after the cup final at Berlin’s Olympiastadion, the team boarded a bus headed to the capital’s alte Stadtbad (an old converted public swimming pool), where they joined 650 guests from the world of sport and politics. The lucky attendees stayed late into the night, and dined on a horrendously stereotypical feast of curried sausages and chips with mayonnaise.

Clearly, the person who had the most fun was Sascha Dum, who felt the need to throw the fierce hands-beside-head pose in the photo above.

[Bild]

Pow! Right in the kisser!

Lesson for us: Try to watch more German football - they have cheerleaders.

Lesson for her: Try to watch more German football - it can be very painful to not pay attention.

[The Beautiful Game]