Arsenal Defends Some of London from FC Köln's Blitz

To an American sports fan, this probably looked like Georgia's mass migration to Notre Dame.

To the faithful of 1. FC Köln -- aka FC Cologne -- it was a road trip 20 years in the making.

That's how long Die Geißböcke -- the Goats; yes, really -- have been away from European competition.

Their resurgent fifth-place finish in last season's Bundesliga qualified them for a Europa League spot, so this opening match couldn't come fast enough.

The sheer numbers of Köln fans making the trek to London for the Arsenal match almost made for a bigger story than the match itself.

The fan crush at Emirates' gates delayed the match for an hour.

The Gunners and Goats were drawn into the Group H pool with FC BATE Borisov of Belarus and Belgrade's FK Crvena Zvezda -- just say Red Star -- who battled to a 1-1 stalemate in their opening match.

Perhaps Köln was looking forward to this day too much. To date, they've lost all three of their Bundesliga matches, scoring only one goal while surrendering seven.

They're a team without stars but wicked on the counter.

Unfortunately for them, Arsenal didn't allow many chances for one. However, Gunner 'keeper David Ospina made Jhon Córdoba feel like he just won the lottery:

And that, in a nutshell was Köln's night.

The Gunners took over and didn't stop until they'd garnered a 3-0 result.

All three strikes came in the second half, starting with Sead Kolašinac four minutes after intermission:

Dude's t-shirt featuring Nordkurve -- FC Schalke 04's ultras -- might've exacerbated the fan trouble that happened when 20,000 Köln fans swarmed the Emirates even though their ticket allocation was only 3000.

Not the smartest bit of trolling by the former Schalke player.

Still, the match continued, with Alexis Sánchez netting Arsenal's second at 67 minutes with an effort of pure quality:

Finally, Héctor Bellerín snuffed any shot the Goats had for a miracle equalizer with this rebound in the 81st minute:

Word is that even more Köln fans are booking trips to Belgrade, where costs are a fraction of London's.

Looks like more than Red Star had better be ready for them.