The Augsburg goalkeeper Marwin Hitz has apologised for sabotaging the penalty spot moments before Cologne’s Anthony Modeste missed his penalty kick in their Bundesliga game on Saturday.
Hitz deliberately dug his studs into the turf – and swivelled a few times for maximum impact – just before Modeste stepped up to try to give the home side the lead. The Cologne player, however, slipped as his standing leg stepped on the area Hitz had tampered with. To make matters worse, Augsburg scored the only goal of the game six minutes later to record a 1-0 victory.
Immediately after the game Hitz tried to play down the incident – “There is no shame in fooling around a bit in the heat of the moment” – but later admitted that he had been in the wrong.
.@FCAugsburg's keeper rakes his studs on the penalty spot, causing @AModeste15 to slip and miss his penalty! https://t.co/onZV5zN2m9
— BT Sport Football (@btsportfootball) December 6, 2015
“That wasn’t the most fair thing to do,” he said. “When I see that, that’s not me. It won’t happen again. I have never saved a penalty before so I thought I would just make the taker a little bit unsure. A lot of things come together when something like this happens: a full stadium, a frantic game and … one thinking that it wasn’t a penalty to start off with.”
Hitz was criticised by his own manager, Markus Weinzierl, who said: “He hasn’t acted well, he hasn’t acted cleverly and [has acted] not fairly. But when you feel wronged you sometimes over-react.” The Augsburg sporting director, Stefan Reuter, added: “It is also not very fair to dive to get a penalty.”
There have been calls for Hitz to be banned retrospectively.
