1. FC Köln will look to celebrate their recently-secured Bundesliga survival with a long-overdue win against FC Augsburg at the WWK ARENA on Friday evening (kick-off 20:30CEST/18:30GMT).
Augsburg come into this Matchday 32 clash in 12th, four points and places worse off than Köln in eighth. A win would see Markus Weinzierl's men guarantee their own top-flight status, and they have every reason to be optimistic: last Saturday's 2-0 win at VfL Wolfsburg means that FCA have taken nine points from their last three games, whilst it has been four-and-a-half years since the Billy Goats last beat Die Fuggerstädter.
Peter Stöger's side are unlikely to let that get to them, though. Köln ensured they would see a third consecutive season in the Bundesliga in beating SV Darmstadt 98 4-1 last Saturday, and withAnthony Modeste having scored his first Bundesliga brace, the North Rhine-Westphalia club have a forward finding form at the business end of the season.
Matchday 15 rewind: Köln 0-1 Augsburg
Goals: 0-1 Bobadilla (64')
Augsburg took a valuable three points away from the RheinEnergieSTADION after putting luckless Köln to the sword with a clinical display of counter-attacking football.
Matchday 32 - match stats
- Köln are guaranteed not to finish the season in the automatic relegation places after Saturday's win over Darmstadt. They took a game longer to achieve the same last season.
- The Billy Goats have won their last two, but have never managed three consecutive wins in the Bundesliga under Stöger.
- Augsburg are enjoying their own spike in form, having won their last three in the league. A fourth victory in a row would be a new club record in the Bundesliga.
- Alfred Finnbogason has opened the scoring for Augsburg in each of their last three games.
- In their last four head-to-heads, Köln have only mustered one point against Augsburg.
- Köln have not scored against Augsburg since December 2014, when Anthony Ujah - now of SV Werder Bremen - scored in a 2-1 loss.
- From the current squad, no Köln player has ever scored a Bundesliga goal against FCA.
- Modeste, with his brace against Darmstadt, has now scored 14 Bundesliga goals this campaign. That is the best-ever single-season return for a Frenchman in Germany's top flight.
- After five seasons in the Bundesliga, Augsburg need one more goal to reach to 200 mark.
Possible line-ups
Augsburg: Hitz - Opare, Gouweleeuw, Klavan, Max - Baier - Kohr - Koo, Halil Altintop, Werner - Finnbogason
Absentees: Callsen-Bracker (light training), Esswein (thigh), Trochowski (knee), Caiuby (suspended)
Coach: Markus Weinzierl
Köln: Horn - Sörensen, Maroh, Heintz, Hector - Vogt, Lehmann - Risse, Osako, Gerhardt - Modeste
Absentees: Bittencourt (suspended)
Coach: Peter Stöger
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