Proud in the sun (nd current)

In the end, Oliver Glasner only wore a sweater around the top. The trainer from Eintracht Frankfurt had long since got rid of his thermal jacket when he thanked the referees and then his players after the 1-0 victory over the Rhein-Main duel against FSV Mainz 05. The warmth came from “outside and inside”, explained Glasner after the away win in Mönchengladbach (3: 2), when the Austrian had also put his winter clothing aside at the end. Perhaps the hot flashes in the run-up to Christmas cannot be avoided at all, because not only the football teacher was warm to the heart at a “fantastic end” of his team. Manager Markus Krösche spoke of an “extraordinary yield” on the home straight of the first half of the season, the fans looked pensively at the table shining from the video cube before the fourth Advent. The eagle bearers hibernate on the European Cup.

Because the tireless Hessen won six of the last seven Bundesliga games, packed three threes under the Christmas tree within seven days and previously bagged a direct entry into the Europa League round of 16, a relegation candidate suddenly became a top team. Krösche’s explanation for this metamorphosis: “Mentality and passion are the reason that we have 27 points.” It didn’t look like that a few weeks ago. But just as the pragmatist Glasner moved into the Champions League in Wolfsburg regardless of his non-relationship with the managing director Jörg Schmadtke, the 47-year-old defied all initial difficulties in Frankfurt as well. “The entire sporting leadership including the leading players gone, the theater in preparation: It was a lot, a lot of unrest,” he says looking back, but then the players would have noticed at some point that the coaching team was “not talking so much nonsense after all”.

When the first progress made in the Europa League, and the first Bundesliga win at Bayern, curiously enough, at the beginning of October resolved further blockades, everyone gradually came together: players, coaches and club management, with Glasner having only made up a solid base of 13, 14 players since then called. Born in Salzburg, he doesn’t even want to mention one key moment in a first half-series full of contrasts, “the most important thing was not to allow yourself to be divided up.”

He has retained stylistic elements such as the physicality and robustness of his predecessor Adi Hütter, and yet tactically his ensemble is no longer so easy to calculate. The dependency on constant flank giver Filip Kostic has broken up. Instead, hits sometimes come about after switching actions through the center. At the only goal in the neighborhood duel, defense organizer Makoto Hasebe stopped a Mainz attack, Sebastian Rode fit into the interface and Rafael Borré, who was striving for goal alone, put forward for Jesper Lindström, who already booked his sixth goal participation in the sixth game (35th).

“Played perfectly,” enthused Glasner. After the win against FSV Mainz, he could now “proudly” fly a few days in the sun and celebrate Christmas with the family, “because we have stabilized our performance at a clear level.” To weaken skilled workers who do their job without having fun. Now, with a laugh, he talked about the “weight specification” with which he had sent his kickers into the short vacation. After the start of training one day before New Year’s Eve, a “tight program” (Glasner) awaits, with the second half of the season against Borussia Dortmund on January 8th giving the direction.

If Eintracht carries the form high into the new year, it is not taboo to target the Champions League qualification for the first time in the club’s history, which was gambled away in the previous season due to the unrest over the departures of Fredi Bobic and Hütter. But Glasner did not want to participate in tabular daydreams. “I’m a burned child. In my active career in Austria I was fourth with 30 points during the winter break, we dreamed of Europe – and then we were relegated. That’s why I stopped thinking too far ahead. So we’ll do it until the last game day. ”Then the hypothermic trainer spoke, who will probably come back with a jacket for the second half of the season.