So A soccer team is seldom very lucky. The superior opponent wasted a good half dozen best scoring chances and the only clear own possibility leads to the unexpected 1: 1 seconds before the final whistle. Tuta’s goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time, which equalized Poulsen’s opening goal for RB Leipzig in the 35th minute, could form the handle of the emergency exit door from a season that has been messed up for Frankfurt Eintracht. But what speaks for the fact that coach Oliver Glasner’s team is now loosening its tension after winning points against the Champions League participant and starting to play football?
Not too much. Because even after the victories against Antwerp, Bayern and Piraeus, there was no sustainable development for the better. The new coach has been working for over three months, but it is not clear where he is going with his team, nor that his players have understood what he is asking of them. The best thing about the situation: Everyone is still doing their best to come up with a common denominator.
“I like to repeat myself, I put my hand in the fire so that everyone gives everything,” said Glasner. The Austrian Eintracht coach reports that not only does he sleep badly, but also some of his professionals because they are tormented by thoughts of how to overcome the playful malaise.
No ground under your feet
Glasner tried to be successful against Leipzig on the same path as Bayern Munich: with a five-man chain. Touré and Durm had to interpret their roles as winger players extremely defensively, so that they were practically pure full-backs. With this, the coach wanted to offer his insecure players a stable basic formation on which they could align and stand up. That worked pretty well for 35 minutes. Except for two chances after the Leipzig pressing trap snapped shut, Eintracht didn’t allow much.
The outnumbering on the defensive, however, inevitably led to a deficit in midfield and attack. In these areas of the field, the Frankfurters got no ground under their feet against aggressive and robust Leipzigers. Even model athlete Kostic was physically inferior to his opponent Simakan. A failed flank ball by Kostics, which accidentally brushed the bar, as well as a shot by the Serb after a corner were the only noteworthy actions of the almost pitifully inferior Frankfurt offensive.
“All in” is rewarded
Which was to be tolerated as long as it was 0-0. After Poulsen’s Leipzig opening goal, however, Eintracht lost its faith in itself. Until the break whistle, it was a plaything for Leipzig, who could easily have increased it to 2-0 or 3-0 if they had acted a little more consistently and purposefully.
Glasner then managed to get his team up morally during the break. The follow-up game of the first 35 minutes was repeated at the beginning of the second half, with the Frankfurters taking more risks from minute to minute. Glasner gradually brought four offensive forces with Barkok, Hauge, Lammers and Ache, which only marginally increased the power of Eintracht, but the number of chances for Leipzig. Only because goalkeeper Trapp held outstanding and Leipzig’s Forsberg shot the ball over the empty goal, Eintracht could hope for the “lucky punch” until the final whistle, which then actually succeeded with Tuta’s header.
The “all in”, as Glasner put it afterwards, was worth it. But betting all on one card in this poker game is not a viable strategy. But what could it look like? Glasner advocated continuing to work with a steady hand. It takes time to switch to “extreme flank football” under Hütter. He wants to combine creatively through the center, but that just doesn’t work because the players wore little lead vests. “To be creative means to be free from constraints, but we are not. But I can tell as much as I want, in the end only success helps to develop further, ”said the Austrian.
The return match against Olympiacos in the Europa League next Thursday offers the first opportunity to get on the right track, but much more important will be the encounter with the bottom of the table Greuther Fürth next Sunday. Anything but a victory over the newcomer, who has only collected one point, would be a huge setback.
Then Glasner would slowly get into a mess. Sports director Markus Krösche claims to be a very patient person, and he admits: “If you get a new coach and he has a slightly different game idea, it takes time.” But at some point the problem that he has had to be solved clearly states: “We are too fidgety and also screw up a lot of simple things forward. We can’t work together, we just have to step up. “
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