Köln drops 3-0 to Stuttgart

Christoph Daum will be looking forward to seeing April come to an end as Köln lost its third straight match this month, losing 3-0 to Stuttgart. A sell-out crowd at RheinEnergieStadion saw die Geißböcke get off to a fast start with Milivoje Novakovič coming close to scoring only two minutes in before Ludovic Magnin cleared his header off the line. Still looking strong, Köln was creating the majority of attacking chances early but Stuttgart's finishing was perfect. At the sixteenth minute Mario Gómez scored the first of his three goals with a close-range header of Roberto Hilbert pin-point cross. Visibly dejected Köln, looked for the equalizer but as the match wore on Stuttgart grew comfortable in defending and taking advantage of the counter-attack. Ten minutes after the break Pedro Geromel was outplayed for the ball by Cacau and after a missed challenge by Derek Boateng the Brazilian crossed to Gómez for goal number two of the day. With nineteen minutes left Thomas Hitzlsperger set Sami Khedira free on a perfect through-ball and with Gómez running to his left, he fed him the ball to the strike as 'keeper Faryd Mondragón went to the ground for a simple finish.