Eintracht Frankfurt 2025: Year in Review & Highlights

Omar Marmoush has his head bowed. The right hand covers his eyes. The striker, wearing a black jacket and dark jeans, had emotional tears in his eyes on the evening of January 17th this year. The Egyptian has taken up a prominent position in the spotlight in front of the northwest curve in the Waldstadion – in the front row, in front of everyone else. Behind him are his teammates Robin Koch, Arthur Theate, Nathaniel Brown and Ansgar Knauff. They all celebrate the main character at this moment.

Because his move to the Premier League to Manchester City is imminent, he is no longer part of the squad for the 2-0 home win over Borussia Dortmund. However, due to his many achievements and his exemplary attitude, Marmoush gets the big stage when he says goodbye afterwards. Or as Eintracht would put it: He leaves the club through the big gate – highly valued and adored by many.

In his approximately one and a half years in Frankfurt, the speed dribbler left a deep mark. In 67 competitive games he scored a remarkable 37 goals and had a formidable 20 assists. There were 27 goals and 16 assists in 46 Bundesliga games. As a signing up front, he literally became a hit.

At the end of a magical first half of the 2024/2025 season, the Cairo-born professional footballer scored another goal and two assists in a 4-1 win over Freiburg in his last appearance. Until the end of his service, the fast and strong right-footer put his heart and soul into the service of the team, which, with 33 points, was able to celebrate Eintracht’s best first half of the season since the introduction of the three-point rule.

“Omar deserves to have this farewell,” said sports director Markus Krösche in mid-January. “The pictures at the end speak volumes.” Coach Dino Toppmöller said with emotion when he said goodbye to Marmoush that he would never forget these goosebumps in the stadium for the rest of his life. “We will miss Omar as a player and even more as a person.” Mario Götze ennobled his teammate with the statement “outstanding character, outstanding player”.

In terms of sport, however, Marmoush has not been happy with the Skyblues so far. In his first half series there are a reasonable seven goals and two assists in his balance sheet. In the 4-0 win over Newcastle, the 26-year-old celebrated the first hat trick of his career in his third game. From today’s perspective, the 1.83 meter tall offensive player does not keep what he promised: in 15 competitive games in the current round, one goal and one assist are a meager return by his standards.

In ten Premier League games, Marmoush, who had to take a month out due to a bruised knee ligament, only played 206 minutes. Therefore, there is speculation in England these days about a loan deal for the Egyptian – Tottenham Hotspur are said to be interested. With Erling Haaland and Jeremy Doku, the competition seems to be too great for him in the ensemble of millions.

Thanks to his efforts, he deservedly received the farewell in Frankfurt, which was remarkably stylish for the football business and will probably remain unique for Marmoush. “Omar had an incredible first half of the season for Eintracht Frankfurt.” With these words, his new striker colleague Haaland Marmoush was welcomed to the Citizens. (the.)

The magic of this sport is simple: it makes seconds seem like hours and hours like seconds. Sometimes the ball flies through the air and a loud, chaotic stadium becomes quiet for a few breaths. Most people already suspect that the ball will soon be in the goal. Just like the Tottenham Hotspur fans who thought when their player shot: Oh beauty, we’re all going to fall on top of each other. They did the math without a 22-year-old Brazilian.

He stretched in a way you rarely see from a goalkeeper. And the unknown, hugely tall goalkeeper with the number 40 had a name: Kauã Santos. After Eintracht’s 1-1 draw in the quarter-finals of the European Cup, the newspapers printed his parades on their sports pages. Santos stopped like that a few more times, but he didn’t stop like that a few times, so he’s on the bench now. But he won’t soon forget the big eyes and open mouths of North London.

On the other side of the field, a similarly long, similarly lanky striker dribbled past three Spurs defenders and shot into the far corner from 20 yards. If you look at this scene eight months later, you see a harbinger in orange. He slid to the corner flag of one of Europe’s largest stadiums, like his role model Thierry Henry once did.

After that, many people knew that this striker’s name was Hugo Ekitiké and that he would be playing in England in the summer. In Liverpool he scores exactly such goals. And because he cheers provocatively afterwards, his name, which reads from the back as well as the front, appears week after week. But his big year began on a cold April evening in London.

After Ekitiké’s goal, Eintracht didn’t score again in the remaining 174 minutes, not even in the second leg in Frankfurt. She wasn’t missing much, but Santos made a mistake. That, too, was a harbinger of much that came later. A few questions remain: What would have happened if the Brazilian had stayed in his goal? What would have happened if Kristensen had shot the ball into the goal?

Perhaps a season in which Eintracht stormed to third place in the Bundesliga with two of the continent’s best attackers would have turned into one in which they won the European Cup for the third time. That leaves her with two images that could one day be iconic. (kori.)

After two missed match points against Mainz 05 and St. Pauli and a 0-1 deficit (scorer Doan) in the “final” in Breisgau, Eintracht managed to cross the finish line into third place in the table thanks to goals from Knauff shortly before the break and Kristensen and Skhiri after an hour of play and qualify for the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history via the Bundesliga placement – without any drama in the last half hour.

Many fans probably wouldn’t have been able to bear that anymore, after the agonizing weeks between hope and fear, in which coach Dino Toppmöller tried with mixed success to compensate for Omar Marmoush’s emigration to Manchester.

Before kick-off in Freiburg, the number of Frankfurt toads was enormous and the pressure was heavy on the coach and team. “We have to stick to ourselves,” Toppmöller demanded, and in the end he and his professionals succeeded – supported by Freiburg’s Philipp Lienhart, who made Knauff’s equalizer possible by hitting the ball.

This is not to say that Eintracht’s triumph came about happily; After this goal opener, the Frankfurt team, led by Kristensen, Knauff and Brown, were the better and stronger team.

Which brings us to the topic of quality: Is it possible that Eintracht has first floundered this season and then fallen into a state of uncertainty because they face too many better opponents in the premier class, the big four show no weakness in the Bundesliga and they no longer have exceptional strikers like Marmoush and Ekitiké, who can defeat better teams single-handedly on good days? Freiburg, swept aside en route to the Champions League, did not beat an opponent from the Bundesliga’s top six last season.

The rush of relief on May 17 quickly faded among the fan base. The departures of Ekitiké and Trapp led to fears, especially after the draw, that Eintracht could be overwhelmed in the premier class. And so Eintracht is in a similar mood before the start of the new year as before the final in Freiburg. (peh.)

There have been many significantly less entertaining evenings in the arena in Frankfurt’s city forest in recent months. September 18th gave Eintracht and everyone to whom the club means a lot an experience that gave the success in the sporting competition an emotional framework.

Kevin Trapp, long-time captain and identification figure, was officially farewelled before the Champions League debut against Galatasaray Istanbul – and the elation that spread throughout the stadium during the ceremony from the northwest curve continued during the football game, which brought the SGE a 5-1 victory and was one of the few games in which there was nothing to complain about.

The decision to return to the French capital, where he was under contract with PSG from 2015 to 2018 and since then has owned an apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower with his fiancée Izabel Goulart, offered Trapp a cheap exit option – even if it can be said today that not all of his hopes were fulfilled straight away: he only played six of 14 league games, the 35-year-old is in competition with Obed, who is 13 years his junior Nkambadio is often left behind.

What distinguished his “Au revoir” in Frankfurt: Despite some recent discord, the old bond remained intact. Half an hour before kick-off, Trapp, sports director Markus Krösche and board spokesman Axel Hellmann formed up on the sidelines while the fans expressed their love with chants and banners such as “Hero of Seville” and “European Cup winner for eternity”.

When Trapp reached for the microphone, the stadium technology went on strike for a short time, so that his words could only be heard in fragments. However, what he wanted to convey became clear: placing his hand on his heart, he signaled gratitude and respect. “What united us will always remain,” said Trapp. Krösche emphasized: “He is simply a legend.”

And there was an unspoken promise in the air in these late summer hours: Trapp will return one day, when he has put away the goalkeeper gloves once and for all – in what role remains to be seen. Eintracht trusts him to do a lot in the future, just like in his heyday as a goalkeeper. (mah.)