The two sides came into this game off the back of contrasting results at the weekend, with Xabi Alonso’s men thrashing title contenders Union Berlin 5-0, while the Billy Goats suffered a 2-0 loss at in-form Freiburg.
In the early stages, Jeremie Frimpong’s run into the box was followed by a wayward shot, and Sargis Adamyan’s scuffed effort at the other end was pushed over by Lukas Hradecky before the resulting corner flashed past everyone.
Exequiel Palacios will feel he should have hit the target when Kӧln failed to clear their lines following Mitchel Bakker’s cross, but the Argentina international blazed over from roughly 15 yards out.
The deadlock was broken just after the half-hour mark when Adamyan’s cutback bounced into Schmitz’s path on the edge of the box and the right-back produced an excellent chest trap before crashing an unstoppable volley into Hradecky’s right-hand corner as the hosts went into the break ahead for just the second time during the current league campaign.
Shortly after the restart, Hradecky displayed cat-like reflexes to tip Jonas Hector’s piledriver onto the bar before getting down low to divert Adamyan’s effort round a post.
Alonso made a triple substitution on 59 minutes as the visitors were badly in search of some creativity and one of those men introduced, Nadiem Amiri, put his team back on level terms six minutes later as his deflected free-kick wrong-footed Marvin Schwabe.
Steffen Baumgart’s side looked to immediately re-establish their advantage but were thwarted by Tapsoba’s astute header.
The match was then turned on its head as Moussa Diaby superbly kept the ball in play inside his own half on the left touchline before scooting past Kingsley Schindler and playing forward to Frimpong, who surged into the box and showed ice-cool composure to play an inch-perfect square ball back for Diaby to tuck in from close range and bag his fourth goal in seven career appearances against Koln.
Home substitute Steffen Tigges’ point-blank header thundered against the bar as the contest drew to a tense conclusion, but Leverkusen held on to move up to 13th, two points and a place behind Koln.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Moussa Diaby (Bayer Leverkusen)
