Et was a had-if-and-but game that was symbolized by a “key situation”. Sports director Bruno Huebner Daichi Kamadas, who was so meaningfully framed, missed the opportunity from the 49th minute to increase Eintracht Frankfurt’s 1-0 lead at 1. FC Köln to 2-0 with Silva’s penalty kick (45th + 2). But the Japanese ball artist made a mistake at that moment, which has also happened to the biggest stars. He hit, six meters from the Cologne goal, cleared by Bas Dost, an air hole instead of pushing the ball into the net.
And so this overall below-average Bundesliga game took a course in the sixteenth of the table that left Eintracht frustrated and annoyed. What the playmaker missed, his colleagues on the defensive missed a little later, when Rode let the Cologne right-back Ehizibue go and his pass in front of the Frankfurter Tor could not block either Ilsanker or Touré. The run-in Duda used Cologne’s first opportunity to score 1: 1 (52nd).
Even an energetic final spurt of Eintracht didn’t change anything, in which the substitute newcomer Amin Younes indicated several times on his competitive game debut in Frankfurt that he could become a win for Eintracht. Above all, his deflected shot from the 78th minute just missed his target. “He worked well in both directions. If he didn’t play the ball optimally or lost it, he fought his way back immediately,” said Hübner, praising the five-time national player.
Premiere by Younes
The realization that he had another good offensive player with creative abilities and individual class in his own ranks also prompted coach Adi Hütter to judge Younes’ premiere benevolently: “I would have granted him a goal.” Had Younes also succeeded, Eintracht would have returned to Frankfurt satisfied. But for good reason, Hütter spoke of “two lost points” with a staid opponent who has to be counted among the relegation candidates this season. As was the newcomer Arminia Bielefeld, against whom the Hessen team only scored 1-1 at the start of the season.
Against higher rated opponents like Hertha BSC (3: 1) and TSG 1899 Hoffenheim (2: 1), however, Hatter’s team won after convincing performances. All in all, this results in a respectable opening balance of eight points and fourth place in the table before the trip to the permanent champions FC Bayern Munich on Saturday. A complete success in Cologne would have capitulated the as yet undefeated Eintracht in second place – one place before the champion of all classes during the previous season, who last lost to Eintracht in the Bundesliga in November 2000.
What was particularly annoying after the draw in Cologne was not so much Kamada’s lack of concentration in a possibly decisive moment, but rather the overall lack of consistency in trying to capitalize on one’s own control of the game during the first half. In this part of the game, the Frankfurter seemed to be satisfied with the feeling that they were far ahead of their opponents in every respect. It took Bornauw’s awkward foul on Kamada to finally give the Portuguese attacker Silva a free run with the penalty. When the time comes, the goalkeeper could voluntarily vacate his job, as Silva has used each of his five penalty kicks for Frankfurt Eintracht cool: this time with a low shot into the right corner of the goal.
Instead of accumulating this capital afterwards, the better team allowed themselves a few attention deficits too much, which could even have led to a deficit, for example with Duda’s von Trapp parried header (63rd). Only in the final phase, when Younes had been in the game from the 69th minute and the later substitute Barkok (86th) hit the side netting with his shot in stoppage time, the full wages beckoned again in a game that the more talented team with their often demonstrated power would have easily gained. And so Amin Younes, the German-Lebanese born in the Rhineland, was the fitting final word after an unsatisfactory Sunday game: “We haven’t lost, but it definitely doesn’t feel that good.”
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