VAt the start of the season, many Eintracht pros bravely formulated Europe as their goal for this season. After ten game days you can say that they are not exactly pursuing their goal, more like a draw. The seven draws in the Bundesliga have not put Adi Hütter’s team on the right track. At the moment, they are six points behind the Champions League in the air and three points on the Palace of Sehnsucht Europa League.
Sebastian Rode knows from his own experience which qualities a team has to bring up in order to reach the group stage of international competitions directly via the Bundesliga and not via an arduous qualification, as Eintracht had to undergo after seventh place a year and a half ago. The 30-year-old midfielder gained first-class European Cup experience with Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Rode is not so pessimistic that Eintracht will be able to expand its international experience next year. Basically, his team has the necessary skills. “On Saturday against Borussia Dortmund we showed again that we can play very, very well against absolute top teams.” But at the moment Eintracht is not yet in a position to call up the high level of performance over 90 minutes. “We have to learn to be wide awake in every moment of the game and get ripped off.”
Against Dortmund, he and his Frankfurters had almost everything under control in the first half, which is more than you can expect from them against a Champions League participant. “But we should have made it 2-0 up to have a real chance of victory. After the break we lost access to too many light balls. We couldn’t relieve the pressure, then the constant pressure comes and then the balance of power is different, ”is Rode’s analysis.
Especially since there is currently one factor that does not matter that helps ambitious outsiders against more expensive and better-staffed opposing teams: the support from the fans. “What a great game would it have been, especially after this first half, if we had played in a sold-out stadium?”, Rode asks a rhetorical question. He believes that the dispute with BVB in front of the huge fan crowd might have had a different outcome. “There would have been a lot going on in the second half. So you will fall behind without this push. “
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The influence of the spectators on a game has a “brutal” meaning, says the South Hesse and cites all other Bundesliga clubs as an example: “I would not have expected that so blatantly that the home advantage would be lost due to Corona.” The statistics show that The home teams won 45 percent of the matches after excluding spectators, now it is 32 percent. The away teams win just as often. Rode believed in the home advantage even without spectators, because the teams would know the peculiarities of their own stadium better. “In Freiburg, for example, the square is 15 meters shorter and five meters wider. The procedures in the stadiums also differ. “
Rode is not entirely satisfied with what has been achieved so far. “We would like a few more points. I was really annoyed about some of the draws. “Rode cites two reasons why Eintracht wins so rarely (the last time so far on the day of German unity) and does not quite meet its own standards:” We followed suit last season Played a very good remaining round after the lockdown, we had improved playfully. But this development doesn’t go up like that, that’s a bit of a shame. ”What’s missing? “The greed and the determination to get the ball over the line and then defend the lead by all means.”
But the Hessian also sees the chance for improvement. “The hope is there that it will work out next time in Wolfsburg (Friday, kick-off at 8.30 p.m.). Everything is possible in the three games until Christmas. We have to get as many points as possible and then pick up on them in January and knock again at the top. ”For Sebastian Rode, the subject of Europe is far from over.
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