Dino Toppmöller couldn’t get used to Eintracht Frankfurt’s 2-2 draw at Union Saint-Gilloise. “It’s annoying when you play a top game here for 35 minutes and normally have to be 3-0 up,” said the coach of the Bundesliga club after the play-off first leg in the Conference League and criticized: “I wish for one other stability. We have experienced players, but everyone is busy with themselves.”
Despite an early 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Farès Chaibi (3rd minute) and Sasa Kalajdzic (10th), the Hessians completely lost the thread after the Belgians’ goal, which was preceded by a major mistake by Ellyes Skhiri Well served with the draw at the end. “We have to be more stable in the face of setbacks, we have to be more mature. We have to learn from this,” demanded Toppmöller.
Sports director Markus Krösche also criticized the slump in the second half. “Mistakes can always happen, that’s part of football. But we still have to keep the conviction and try to push through the game. That’s the crucial thing,” said Krösche.
Draw “extremely annoying”
Both Toppmöller and Krösche described the draw as “extremely annoying”. Nevertheless, the Hessians still hold all the trump cards in the second leg next Thursday in front of their home crowd. “The starting position is promising, especially with regard to the home advantage,” said Toppmöller.
Meanwhile, according to a media report, the police in Brussels arrested more than 100 Frankfurt members of the active fan scene as a precaution before the game in the Conference League. As the Belgian portal “VRT News” reported, citing the South Police Zone, a total of 130 people were temporarily arrested before the first round game in the second round. “That went without incident. In order not to disrupt public order, they will be held in administrative custody until after the game. After the game they will be released and can return to Frankfurt,” a police spokesman was quoted as saying.
Ralf Weitbrecht, Brussels Published/Updated: Recommendations: 4 Florentine Fritzen Published/Updated: Recommendations: 3 Published/Updated:
According to the district mayor of Kaudenaarde, numerous cars with German license plates were noticed in the area of the Dilbeek swimming pool there. These were sent to the federal police for risk analysis, said Willy Segers. According to the local politician, it turned out that these license plates were connected to the hard core of Eintracht Frankfurt fans. The swimming pool and the Lotto Park venue in Anderlecht are only about two kilometers away from each other on foot.
Note: An initial version of this report stated that the Frankfurt fans had been taken into “pretrial custody” by the Belgian police, according to a police spokesman. The content of this statement has now been adjusted.
