Damage in the Box!: 1.FC KAISERSLAUTERN (Fritz Walter Stadion)

The third and final game of the weekend was a trip to see 'die Roten Teufel' of Kaiserslautern take on their rivals Cologne in a Bundesliga clash.

It was a hair raising trip from Karlsruhe, as the sat-nav directed us along an A road through the vast Rheinland-Pfalz forest, with snow covered trees (it put me in mind of the Snake Pass back home, which is the road that crosses the Pennines). I'm sure I would have appreciated the vista a lot more had I not been driving, though my passenger did assure me it was stunning!

Anyhow, as a mere novice to driving in Germany, I managed to pass the test with flying colours and we were parked up at the university just under an hour before kick off. Thanks to the efficiency of the park and ride scheme, which was free, we were at the Betzenberg just 10 minutes later.

The Betzenberg stadium, which was re-named in 1985 after former Kaiserslautern and West Germany legend Fritz Walter, is high upon a hill overlooking the city. It has a capacity of 49,750 but it was far from full at this evening's game. It is a fantastic ground though, which was re-developed for the 2006 World Cup, and the 'Red Devils' in the West Curve did make some noise.

I had high hopes for this game, despite the lowly positions of the respective clubs, but as the locals would say, this game was total Scheiße!

The only things of real note that happened in the 90 minutes were Kaiserslautern being reduced to 10 men, just before half time, when Ariel Borysiuk received 2 yellow cards on his debut. Cologne having a goal disallowed, after 54 minutes, when Milivoje Novakovic was ruled offside and the winning goal itself.

Odise Roshi scored in the 72nd minute, which was within seconds of him coming on as a substitute, when he headed home from a corner kick, to give Cologne the three points. Obviously the quality of the game was not helped by the sending off, Kaiserslautern becoming more and more defensive as the game went on, and Cologne's goal threat was lessened by the absence of 15 goal striker Lucas Podolski.

It was an anti-climatic ending to what was another fantastic weekend of German groundhopping, despite the cold weather. Roll on May when I will be doing it all again, and hopefully it will be marginally warmer!