Augsburg striker blames missed penalty on lack of crowd noise

Augsburg striker Florian Niederlechner believes the lack of crowd noise contributed to his penalty miss during a 1-1 draw against Koln.

Niederlechner saw his spot-kick saved in the 27th minute by Timo Horn in the Bundesliga match played behind-closed-doors on Sunday.

The 29-year-old felt the eerily quiet 'ghost' atmosphere at Augsburg Arena made his chance to open the scoring a difficult one.

"I made the biggest mistake you can make as a penalty taker. Crappy ghost games," Niederlechner said post-match.

As Niederlechner was preparing to take the penalty, a Koln player told Horn that the Augsburg forward likes to shoot in the right corner.

After hearing the exchange between his opponents, Niederlechner decided to shoot away from his preferred side, with Horn diving full stretch to make the save.

"Actually, my corner is on the right, every time. I let the situation really influence me," Niederlechner said. "I was often the hero. Today I was the fool."

Three points would have been handy for Augsburg, but in the end they only managed to salvage a draw shortly afterr Anthony Modeste gave Koln the lead in the 85th minute.

Phillip Max forced an equaliser three points later with Augsburg moving three points clear of the relegation zone with four matches to play.

Koln are seven points clear of 16th-placed Dusseldorf and will be looking to secure their place in the Bundesliga next season over the next two matchdays.

Bayern Munich look close to securing their eighth consecutive title, leading Borussia Dortmund by seven points with only 12 left to play for.

In the race for the two Champions League spots behind Bayern and Dortmund, RB Leipzig have a three-point advantage in third over Gladbach and Leverkusen, with Wolfsburg all but mathematically out of the race for Europe's premier club competition.

Over the recent weeks, Bundesliga clubs and players have joined in on the worldwide protests surrounding the death of George Floyd.

Following a series of individual messages from Marcus Thuram, Jadon Sancho and Achraf Hakimi, both Dortmund and Bayern continued to speak out against the killing prior to their games against Hertha Berlin and Bayer Leverkusen respectively, Bayern choosing to take to the field wearing black armbands sporting the words 'Black Lives Matter'. 

BVB's stars, meanwhile, trained in shirts that showed the words "Black, white, yellow, red" crossed out above "Human," and another which stated simply, "No justice, no peace."