Kwasniok fears Hübers suffered “serious knee injury”

Köln’s coach isn’t optimistic about the chances of his key defender avoiding a serious injury.

Despite their spirited performance, Köln left Dortmund without a point after conceding late in the game via a deflected Maximilian Beier effort. Timo Hübers’ injury could also be a big loss for the newly-promoted team.

“It looks very bad. You have to be so honest,” explained Lukas Kwasniok in a post-match interview with Sky. “I spoke with him briefly. He is still weeping because of the severe pain. I know it doesn’t look good around the knee. It just looks like a really serious knee injury. But we don’t have a final diagnosis yet. He will be out for months.”

The center-back twisted his knee after a duel with Serhou Guirassy in the 82nd minute. He immediately went to the ground, and the medical staff needed a stretcher to get him off the pitch.

Including a forced change due to Cenk Özkacar’s earlier injury, Kwasniok had already made five substitutions before the incident. In the end, the hosts capitalized on playing ten minutes with a man advantage.

“The question can be asked in retrospect. It was certainly risky to make three subs at once,” said Kwasniok regarding his triple changes twenty minutes before time. “The truth is that we probably made the fifth change before the injury. We were under immense pressure that I’d rather have six instead of four fresh legs (three new players) on the field.”

Köln will face another big challenge on Wednesday as they accept the challenge of stopping Bayern Munich in the DFB-Pokal.