Eintracht trainer Oliver Glasner surprised on Friday with a statement: “Physically, we have zero problems.” This Saturday at 6.30 p.m. in Mönchengladbach is the seventh game of the Frankfurt soccer professionals this October. Some call it a game plan, some an impertinence. Whereby the burden will intensify significantly until the World Cup break in mid-November. Until then, there are another six matches on the Eintracht program, which will ultimately have been 13 games in six weeks.
At the moment Glasner sees no physical wear and tear in his professionals. “They are extremely professional, they have a great attitude.” The Austrian substantiates the praise by pointing out: “Yesterday there were many from the supervisory staff and many players in the professional camp, although we had a day off.” Glasner reacted with the training-free Thursday the problem that has already arisen with the continuous load.
“I want the players to clear their heads as often as possible so that they can happily concentrate on their work again.” The mental strain is enormous. Glasner sees the fact that Eintracht employees came to work voluntarily to take care of themselves, visit the gym or do small things as a sign of “how comfortable they feel at Eintracht. And so there is just enough time to have a coffee together.”
Glasner shortens the video analysis
On the other hand, the trainer does not hide the fact that there is a risk of irritating each other in constant stress. That’s why he’s shortening the team meetings and video analyzes these weeks. “In the meantime, I can sometimes no longer hear myself, how is it supposed to be for the others?” asks Glasner. All information is processed as concisely as possible and communicated as concisely as possible.
Great learning effects cannot be achieved at the moment anyway: “What doesn’t fit at the moment, whether tactically, technically or conditionally, cannot be made suitable in the next three weeks, we can only try to do the best possible performance every three or four days in the game bring to. Working out something is only possible again in the second half of the season.”
This is also the reason why Almamy Tourè is not finding his form so quickly after a nine-week injury break. “We can’t offer him the training he needs, it’s only about regeneration and load control, not about building up,” says Glasner. That’s why he had no choice but to get Tourè into a rhythm with short appearances in the games.
“Although I don’t want that, because these aren’t friendly games, they’re very important games.” That’s why he won’t call up Smolcic in the starting XI against Mönchengladbach to give him more match practice and thus better prepare for his commitment in the Champions League to prepare against Marseille next Wednesday. The then suspended regular Tuta will start in Gladbach.
Rode and Hasebe at the limit?
Glasner emphasizes that he is not following a holistic plan in this sequence of English weeks, but is looking from game to game and selecting the best team in each case. “Of course I look at the condition of the players, but it doesn’t rotate because it’s one’s turn.” It boils down to a “mini rotation” without changing five or six players.”
Kamada, Sow, Lindström, Götze, Ndicka and Kolo Muani each received a break. It doesn’t make sense to go the full 90 minutes three times in a row. With Hasebe and Rode, the limit was reached even earlier, says Glasner. A starting line-up against Mönchengladbach that will look very similar to the one against Bayer Leverkusen is emerging.
Eintracht was shown very freshly which opponents they will face on Saturday. On the way home from the cup game at the Stuttgarter Kickers, the coach and team watched the encounter between Borussia and Darmstadt 98 in the bus. The fact that Gladbach were eliminated by a 1: 2 has nothing to do with a lack of form, says Glasner: “It’s just that the Darmstadt team did it very, very well. A lot of Bundesliga teams would have had difficulties there, including us. ”And the Gladbachers would have missed a few clear scoring chances and they would have been denied a clear penalty: “He is often criticized, but if the VAR is not there, he is missed .”
The Eintracht coach thinks highly of the opponent, especially their offensive strength. “I expect a very open game. If it goes 3-2 like last season, I would be very happy.”
