“We are looking forward to the cup game this Wednesday in Saarbrücken,” said Dino Toppmöller on the podium in the Augsburg press conference room late on Sunday evening. After the 1:2 at FCA, which meant the third defeat in a row for the out-of-form Frankfurt team in all competitions, the Eintracht coach, whose expression was rigid, tried to at least spread confidence with words in these dark times for sport.
He demanded a feat of strength from himself. Because leading the Hessians as a coach is no pleasure at the moment, quite the opposite. With their negative development, the Frankfurt team have now reached their lowest point in Augsburg with probably their worst performance of the season. The spirit of optimism that spread in the fall with some very good games is finally gone.
Eintracht has reached a critical point in the final spurt of this football year. The need for change on the pitch for the better has reached a worrying level. In this condition, the ambitious club, which ranks seventh in the table, will not be able to compete for the international places. The pressure on the sporting leadership and the team, which is becoming increasingly uninspired, has become great.
“That’s not enough at this level”
Kevin Trapp, the captain who was struggling to keep his composure, raised the alarm in Augsburg. His clear message: Something has to change fundamentally and quickly. As a wake-up call to everyone, the goalkeeper demanded that “we have to be aware again that we won the games we won because we were aggressive, because we played quickly forward, without frills. Didn’t die in beauty,” he emphasized and listed Frankfurt’s chain of mistakes over the past few weeks: “It started in Bremen, against Stuttgart we conceded a goal in the first minute, against PAOK Saloniki we also woke up too late and same thing again today.”
There is a system behind the inadequacies. In view of the fact that the big picture at Eintracht (“that’s not enough at this level”) is not right, Trapp put his finger in the wound and announced talks with a ruthless inventory with the aim of waking everyone up. “We have to get it in our heads that it will be very, very difficult at this level,” he said.
In the run-up to Christmas, Eintracht, who had conceded two goals for the fourth time in a row and whose only goal at FCA was based on an own goal from goalkeeper Finn Dahmen, felt a strange lethargy and all their enthusiasm was gone. The people from Augsburg won significantly more duels, did significantly more sprints and ran a total of five kilometers more than the people from Frankfurt, who were in energy-saving mode and lacked passion and determination.
In the first half, Eintracht “played a bit of football, but didn’t win any duels,” complained Trapp. “We didn’t play forward, we had the ball in our own half a lot, but that doesn’t help us much. We had far too big gaps in the midfield.” That’s why it was easy for Augsburg to “play behind us. “That was simply not enough,” the goalkeeper said angrily.
The game in the icebox (minus twelve degrees Celsius) in Augsburg revealed that the Frankfurt team cannot replace the injured defensive midfielder Ellyes Skhiri with the existing personnel. Too many players are currently of no help to Eintracht. This also includes manager Mario Götze, who is only a substitute in the Bundesliga these weeks. Defense chief Robin Koch, who made his comeback in Augsburg, has to get going again after recovering from an injury; he is not yet the usual stability factor.
“There are also simple remedies”
Already at the beginning of December, the people of Frankfurt gave the impression that they urgently needed a break. Toppmöller did not want to use the high workload and rush to meet deadlines as an excuse. Nevertheless, you can already notice the workload for one or the other. That could be an explanation, “the boys have a lot of games under their belt,” said the coach.
Toppmöller had to bitterly note that the Augsburg team had “bought the edge” of the Frankfurt team in all respects, “when it comes to tackling, emotionality and sometimes a simple game”. Despite the sharp decline in his team’s performance curve, he wants to stick to his course of playfully escaping pressure situations in his own half. “We want to try to play out from the back. That is our philosophy. It’s just that you make a mistake that gets punished.”
Nevertheless, Eintracht is not starting to “kick every ball forward”. However, he pointed out that his team did not have to “create every chance in a playful way”. “There are also simple means,” said the coach, referring to striker Jessic Ngankam’s final chance to score, the starting point of which was a deflected cross from defender Willian Pacho. “A coincidence,” says Toppmöller.
A comment from Anno Hecker Published/Updated: Recommendations: 45 Jörg Daniels, Augsburg Published/Updated: Recommendations: 4 Jörg Daniels, Frankfurt Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1
Trapp now carefully and intentionally attaches groundbreaking importance to the cup duel against third division club Saarbrücken. “We can decide for ourselves which direction we want to go,” he said. “We have to implement the things that made us strong again. We can do it.” The goalkeeper attests that the team has “a lot of quality” in terms of composition. What she has to prove now.
