In April 1994, Eintracht suffered an embarrassing 1-0 defeat at VfB Leipzig. At that time, the Saxons were already certain that they had been relegated from the Bundesliga, while the Frankfurters still had championship ambitions. “Now we’re the idiots of the nation,” said former coach Klaus Toppmöller, summing up the disaster. Shortly thereafter, the Hessians separated from him.
Almost 30 years later, Toppmöller’s son Dino did not disgrace himself at his trainer premiere in the Saxon trade fair city. In the first main round of the DFB Cup, the new Frankfurt coach and his team beat Lok Leipzig 7-0 on Sunday, the successor club to VfB with the motto “pure football”.
Goals for Eintracht, which lost to RB Leipzig in the cup final last season, were scored twice by Eric Junior Dina Ebimbe (86th minute and 90+14), twice by Jessic Ngankam (89th and 90+10), and Randal Kolo Muani (37th), Mario Götze (59th) and Omar Marmoush (66th). For a long time, however, the Frankfurters could hardly convince in a playful way. It’s “never easy” in the cup. It’s difficult and tough at the beginning,” said sporting director Timmo Hardung. Substitute striker Marmoush spoke of a “good and cohesive team performance”.
“It’s uncomfortable”
The game was overshadowed by riots. After 73 minutes of play, referee Michael Bacher interrupted the game for more than ten minutes due to heavy cannon shots and rockets fired – the misconduct was largely due to the Leipzig fans. The players of both teams first gathered in front of the coaches’ benches before disappearing into the players’ tunnel. Eintracht tried to protect themselves against the fired pyrotechnics with umbrellas as best they could.
“It’s uncomfortable. A firecracker went off 15 meters away from us,” Hardung reported. “That’s unworthy of this competition.” Dense black smoke could be seen in a block in Leipzig. A cannon shot landed next to two wheelchair users. “Things like that don’t belong on a football field,” criticized Toppmöller. Helmeted police forces lined up in front of the Frankfurt fans. After the restart, Leipzig supporters tried to get through a barrier. But they didn’t succeed. “It’s good that our supporters didn’t allow themselves to be provoked,” said Hardung.
A large number of police are also on site outside the stadium. : Image: dpa
The encounter at the ambitious club from the Regionalliga Nordost, which 11,100 football fans watched, was a high-risk game. Frankfurt fans maintain a friendship with Chemie Leipzig, whose followers in turn rival those of Lok Leipzig. The police were therefore in the Probstheida district with a large contingent and several hundreds on site.
There were no real surprises in the Frankfurt squad for the first competitive game of the new season. From the newcomers, Robin Koch, Willian Pacho and Ellyes Skhiri made their first competitive appearances right from the start. Toppmöller had more confidence in Makoto Hasebe – the Japanese played in the three-man defense instead of Tuta. Captain Sebastian Rode, who had suffered a calf injury in pre-season, was given a place on the bench by the coach.
Happy lead at the break
Kevin Trapp is part of the fixed inventory – fortunately from Eintracht’s point of view. With good positional play and responsiveness, the national goalkeeper prevented Leipzig striker Djamal Ziane from being 1-0 down after eleven minutes. Before that, Koch and Pacho had made a misunderstanding in their interaction. The Frankfurters often had the ball, but they didn’t create any promising chances to score. They acted too statically and too imprecisely. A long-range shot (21st minute) by Skhiri brought at least a touch of goal danger.
When Luca Sirch cleared a corner in a direct duel against Randal Kolo Muani, there was applause from the Leipzig supporters. This also applied to a header (35th) by Tobias Dombrowa, who just missed the Eintracht goal. Then the Eintracht lead was curious: A shot by Kolo Muani, which did not go directly to the Lok goal, was still clumsily carried by Leipzig goalkeeper Isa Dogan into his own goal to make it 0-1 (37 ‘). The Frankfurt leadership was accordingly happy at half-time. “We struggled a lot in the first half,” said Toppmöller.
Published/Updated: Daniel Theweleit, Cologne Published/Updated: 47 minutes ago Roland Zorn, Bielefeld Published/Updated:
At the beginning of the second half, Eintracht hardly brought any pace into the game. It was still enough to score a goal. On a pass from Jesper Lindström, who at least showed a bit of dynamism in this scene, Götze increased the lead to 2-0 (59th). Substitute Marmoush made it 3-0 seven minutes later after a nice combination via Jens Petter Hauge and Aurelio Buta. The ban was now broken, despite the misconduct of Leipzig supporters, Eintracht could not be put off. Junior Dina Ebimbe and Ngankam both scored twice each. “That shows the quality and breadth we have in the squad,” said Hardung.
