Bhe football teacher Oliver Glasner is asked to think along and switch off is forbidden. Because his players, who resumed training on Thursday after the short Christmas break without the coronavirus sick Kristijan Jakic, Gonçalo Paciência and substitute goalkeeper Jens Grahl, should understand why they should do things in a certain way. “Then it becomes your own act,” said the Eintracht coach in an interview with the club shortly before the turn of the year.
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The 47-year-old Austrian, who came to the Main from Wolfsburg in the summer, accepts that it often takes time for his kind of football training to show its first successes on the pitch. Until his protégés have thought the subject matter through in their heads. “We give them a lot of information, maybe sometimes a little too much.” In view of the bumpy start to the season, it was noticed that the players had “a lot to think about”. “And if you think too much on the pitch, you slow down in your actions,” said Glasner. After “more heads and less legs were challenged” at the beginning of the collaboration, the Frankfurt-based company is in the process of “turning things around a little”. The coach is happy about how his players can now implement his requirements better and better.
“More is already stored in the head on the hard drive, the legs already do a lot by themselves.” Now many actions are “clearer and more automated. We had to work hard because the players thought so much, ”said Glasner about his team’s development process. The soccer teacher had to wait until the seventh Bundesliga matchday for the first sense of achievement (2-1 in Munich) with Eintracht. After round ten, the Hessians were only fifteenth in the table – with only nine points.
Today, however, before the start of the second half of the season on Saturday, at home against Dortmund 27; the Frankfurters are now sixth. With a long delay, the Hessians then got under way. They were able to win six of the previous seven first division games. Only one of the last ten competitive games was lost. “It is important that we have caught ourselves in a sporting way and have taken big steps forward,” says Glasner, speaking of a “really great first six months”.
This should also be followed by a successful second half of the year. The coach currently sees the greatest opportunity for improvement in defending. “Our defensive behavior has to get even better,” he demands. “We clearly received too many goals. For a while we were more stable defensively. ”Goalkeeper Kevin Trapp had to accept 24 goals so far, who with his strong performances prevented further successes from the opponents. Only six league competitors are better off in this statistic than the successful Europa League participant from Main. For the months of January and February – “when we have a lot of training time available – Glasner announced strengthening defensive work as a“ focus ”.
“The only point to get mad”
In the last three top division games of this year, the Frankfurters scored a total of nine goals. That is a third of the total number of hits in the first half of the season. In the game forward, his team “clearly made the biggest leap”, says the coach. “I think that we have become more variable.” In the first ten competitive games, the Hessians only got one goal per game. “It wasn’t really nice to look at at the beginning, either,” Glasner admits in retrospect. In the coming weeks he wants to “further consolidate” the game with his team. He is “a coach who is seldom satisfied, which is what I am said to be”.
The soccer teacher has identified “a lot of potential” in his team. “Coupled with the will and the willingness of the team, I am sure that we can do a lot better,” said Glasner. “I ask the players to want to keep improving. That’s the only point that makes me angry. Namely, if I have the feeling that they are letting it ripple. ”According to his own admission, the trainer has not yet had any reason to complain in Frankfurt. He is “extremely impressed with the characters and the types that we have. They are all great guys, who kept stepping on the gas even in difficult phases in training and never caused a bad mood in the dressing room. “
But Fabio Blanco stayed away from the start of training on Thursday. The 17-year-old talent from Spain does not see any development prospects at Eintracht and is currently in talks about a club change. According to Spanish media, Blanco will join FC Barcelona. In return, the Frankfurters want to strengthen themselves with Faride Alidou (HSV) and Randal Kolo Muani (FC Nantes). The negotiations between the clubs will show whether in winter or in summer 2022.
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