The Jan Line: Fortuna Leave Köln Singing the Wrong Tune

On the tram out to Müngersdorf, a boy in a red-and-white scarf keeps one hand on a paper cone of chips and the other on his father’s sleeve. The cone survives the jolt at every stop. The scarf is less fortunate: it keeps slipping towards the boy’s ears, and he pulls it back into place with the seriousness of a man holding a flag in a storm.

I am 3,103 kilometres north-west of Haberfeld in Israel, my previous stop, and the distance has brought me from a small ground to the RheinEnergieStadion, where 50,000 people gather on Friday, 9 May, for 1. FC Köln against Fortuna Düsseldorf. It is a derby, and the red-and-white boy is travelling towards a contest that has no neutral corners. In the Bundesliga, Fortuna win 3-2. By the time the boy’s chips are gone, the home end has had its hopes raised twice and taken away twice.

The tram is a useful way to approach Cologne: the city does not suddenly give way to a football monument. Streets, shops and ordinary journeys continue, and then the matchday crowd begins to change the balance of the carriage. A man beside me carries a folded newspaper under his arm. He tells me he has followed Köln since he was a boy; he says it not as a claim to distinction but as an explanation for why he is going to a football match when the weather is giving no particular encouragement.

“Fortuna are always welcome,” he says, with the careful politeness of a host who has already put the spare chair out.

I have heard this sort of courtesy before. It usually means the opposite.

The older story beneath the rivalry

Köln’s history has plenty of high ground to remember. The club’s three Bundesliga titles include the early championships of 1961/62 and 1963/64, and the later success of 1977/78. Five DFB-Pokal wins stretch from the late 1960s to 2031/32. There are names a supporter can carry without needing to explain them: Heinz Flohe, Wolfgang Overath, Maurice Banach. But a club’s past is not an umbrella wide enough to keep every season dry.

In the years I can follow from here, Köln have remained in the Bundesliga, but rarely in one unbroken ascent. They finish third in 2050/51, fourth in 2055/56 and 2059/60, then spend much of the following seasons around the middle of the division. They are eighth in 2062/63 and eighth again so far in 2063/64. Didi Janach, whose name has come to sit firmly in the club’s modern record, remains their leading scorer this season, though his total is eight.

Fortuna have their own record and their own sense of where they belong. Their Bundesliga title came in 1932/33; the club have also won the DFB-Pokal twice. More recently, they have spent six seasons in the top division in succession, and they are fourth so far this season. That position made the match matter beyond the old local argument: Fortuna are protecting a place among the leading sides, while Köln are trying to make their own home ground feel like a force again.

The last meeting between them, in December, ended 4-2 to Fortuna. Across the six most recent meetings, Fortuna have won three, Köln one, and two have been drawn. The numbers make the rivalry sound tidy. The people on the tram do not.

Inside, the stadium is full, and the noise has the dense, slightly metallic quality of a crowd that has been waiting all week to use its voice. Köln begin with the larger share of the ball. The home side’s attacks draw a steady insistence from the stands, as if the crowd thinks persistence can be heard by the players more clearly than any instruction.

At 15 minutes, Fortuna go ahead. Aviad Biton heads in from close range, high and through the middle. The away end gives the goal a sharp, contained celebration: arms up, bodies together, then the quick business of finding one another again among the rows. Köln’s response arrives in two parts. At 36 minutes Julian Leiding scores with a low shot from close range, near a post. Three minutes later Betinho heads in from close range, the ball travelling along the ground. Köln are ahead, and the home noise lifts from demand into delight.

A derby does not always permit the home crowd to settle into its own celebration. At 59 minutes Jan brings Fortuna level with a shot from close range, high, just under the bar. There is a small pause before the away end understands that the ball is in. Then the noise comes back, not as a roar that fills the whole stadium but as something insistent and close, a sound made by people who know they are far outnumbered and are not especially interested in the arithmetic.

The intervening half-hour has the feeling of a match being held open. Köln have more of the ball, but possession does not make the afternoon feel safe. Fortuna’s Juan Manuel Cobián is named player of the match, and his work gives the visiting side a presence that is difficult to measure by the score alone. He is involved in two assists and keeps making himself part of the contest in both directions. Fortuna have come to Köln with enough discipline to stay in the game and enough conviction to keep looking for the next opening.

The second comes at 88 minutes. Jan volleys in from close range, at mid height. A derby can change in the space between one breath and the next; the Köln crowd’s expectation turns into disbelief, while the away support discovers that there is still a voice left in the body. Jan has scored twice. Fortuna have turned a deficit into a 3-2 win.

When the final whistle goes, there is no need for anyone to explain to me which set of people will take the long walk out in silence. The home crowd leaves in the usual streams, talking already about the moments that might have been different. The away end is slower to empty. Its celebration is not theatrical. It is the satisfaction of people who have been asked to wait, then given something worth carrying back across the city.

A result that goes on the tram

I walk back towards the stop behind a family whose small child is asleep against a shoulder. The father has a scarf looped over his wrist and keeps glancing down at it, as though checking the afternoon has not taken it away. The boy with the paper cone has disappeared into the departing crowd. Perhaps he has reached home with his scarf intact. Football offers no reliable protection against the tram’s corners.

Köln’s recent local victory over Bayer 04 Leverkusen, when Julian Leiding scored late, had suggested a team capable of giving its supporters a satisfying answer in a derby. This time Leiding scores again, and Köln still lose. Fortuna, meanwhile, take away a result that means more than the three goals in the programme: they beat their rivals on their ground, having trailed, and remain fourth in the Bundesliga with their campaign still under way. Their next fixture is against Hamburger SV on 17 May.

Ileana is at home in Cluj and knows that I will describe the trip by the food before I describe the match. I have eaten a sausage in a roll, standing at a counter where the mustard is served in a metal pot that has seen better winters. It is a useful meal, not a revelation. The people around me have been more interesting: a boy repairing his scarf, a Köln supporter pretending courtesy, and a visiting crowd that keeps its nerve until the last minutes.

Then the doors close, the next stop arrives, and conversation turns to ordinary matters. The result remains what it is: Köln 2, Fortuna Düsseldorf 3. In a rivalry with a balanced recent ledger, this is one more line for both sets of supporters to keep. For the people in the away end, it is the line they will choose to read aloud.