A rather unconventional reason has been put forward as the reason for a missed penalty by Augsburg striker Florian Niederlechner.
The forward insists that a lack of crowd noise at their home match against Cologne contributed to his costly penalty miss at the weekend.
Niederlechner failed from 12 yards as Augsburd drew 1-1 at home to Cologne on Sunday but the attacker believes he would have scored if the game wasn’t played behind closed doors.
“I made the biggest mistake you can make as a penalty taker. Crappy ghost games,” Niederlechner said after the contest.
As the 29-year-old was stepping up to take the penalty, a Cologne player told Horn that he likes to strike home into the right corner.
After hearing the exchange between the Cologne players, Niederlechner opted for the other corner before Horn dived full stretch to deny the striker.
“Actually, my corner is on the right, every time. I let the situation really influence me.
“I was often the hero. Today I was the fool,” he added sadly.
Niederlechner will be hoping the penalty miss doesn’t prove too costly in the grand scheme of things within the Bundesliga.
Augsburg now sit four points clear of the Bundesliga relegation zone with four matches of the campaign remaining.
