All too often Oliver Glasner will not be able to repeat this step. Otherwise it can happen that the soccer coach in Frankfurt service aims with his rhetoric the opposite of what he actually has in mind. After the defeat against Hertha BSC, Eintracht’s commanders expressed their displeasure with the appearance of the team and made it clear that they expected more commitment from everyone. Should it have been the Austrian’s intention to activate the self-assertion powers in his own ranks with the criticism in which he did not omit his own actions, his plan promptly worked.
On Thursday, the Hessians came to a success in the Europa League that they all had longed for. There was a 3-1 win against Olympiacos Piraeus. It was the second win in the third game of the current international campaign. As a result, the winners in Group D climbed to first place in the table.
Before the kick-off it was stormy around the World Cup arena: the low pressure area “Ignatz” also swirled through the city forest. However, fallen branches and fallen trees were removed in good time on the affected roads. To be on the safe side, the spectators were asked to exercise caution on arrival and departure. A total of 35,000 visitors came. What they saw of Eintracht could, from a tactical point of view, be labeled as a controlled offensive; the players tried to bridge the midfield out of an orderly defense and to switch to attack mode.
High entertainment value
Glasner had put Sam Lammers, Jens Petter Hauge and Jesper Lindström on the bench in response to the modest appearance against the Berliners. But Goncalo Paciencia started in the front row; The busy Portuguese was supported by the forward-looking helpers Rafael Borré and Daichi Kamada. Not much was missing and the Japanese would have put Frankfurt in the lead after the first well-thought-out attack (13th). But he aimed with a header, after Borré crossed, just wide of the left post.
The maintenance value of the performance contributed to the fact that Piraeus did not limit itself to condensing the rooms in its own half, but tried to switch quickly. Youssef El-Arabi in particular called for the Eintracht guards to concentrate. Unity remained the determining force on the lawn, and Borré initially missed two opportunities. First he steered, staged by Kostic, a flank just over the target (20th); then the Colombian tried his head again (after a Kostic corner) from close range, but goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik got his hands on the ball in time (23rd). Borré was also in focus in the exciting scene that followed. Pape Cissé threw himself to the ground while trying to prevent the Frankfurt pacemaker from entering the sixteen-meter space, causing him to fall.
Two penalties and two goals
For referee Tiago Martins an illegal undertaking, which he punished with a penalty whistle. Borré, who had always let Paciencia go first, this time took action himself – and completed it with a shot in the corner (26th). The joy about the lead lasted only for a short time, whereby the occurrence fits into the picture of the unfortunate season of Eintracht so far. Olympiakos equalized almost immediately, also with a penalty: El-Arabi moved Trapp (30th) after Kristijan Jakic had thrown himself hand first into a ball in the penalty area. And Piraeus followed suit.
Tuta prevented further adversity with a block against El-Arabi. Before the break, things looked friendlier again for Eintracht. When a header hit Hinteregger’s crossbar, only centimeters were missing before the rebound landed at Djibril Sow. The Swiss kept an overview in a confusing situation in which many legs were close together and found Almamy Toure, who scored 2-1 in stoppage time in the first half.
The Frankfurters started the second section with fresh momentum. Now it happened to them that Piraeus did not want to come to terms with the intermediate result and advanced even further. That created space to counter. Paciencia, who by then had already collected a lot of diligence, tried it after just under an hour from a distance, whereby Vaclik did not cut a good figure: The Greek goalkeeper let the play equipment slap so far forward that Kamada picked it up at full speed and to the 3: 1 was able to insert (59th). That cleared up the situation that evening.
The Eintracht brought the respectable result, also due to the inclusion of the recovered defensive expert Sebastian Rode, without major problems.
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