Eintracht Frankfurt: The crisis is coming to a head – Kamada knows Glasner’s anger
-
OfIngo Durstewitz
conclude
There are many reasons for Eintracht Frankfurt’s crash – the way coach Oliver Glasner deals with some players also raises questions.
Frankfurt – A few meager numbers to start with: In the second half of the season, Eintracht Frankfurt is in 15th place with four miserable points, a goal ahead of FC Augsburg on the relegation rank and two points ahead of VfB Stuttgart and Hertha BSC in 17th and 18th. Six of their own The Hessians scored goals, four of them said from alleged standards, a shot whizzed deflected into the net – even this significant goal safety is only undercut by the Swabians and the capital city (five each). And you have to be very clear: In its current condition, Eintracht is right where it is in the back series tableau: very delicate in front of a relegation zone. The crash is rapid and always considered.
The question is what happened to this team, which just before Christmas has the competition and experts alike. “In this form, it comes directly after Bayern,” said Mainz boss Christian Heidel after his 05ers lost 1-0 at the end of December. And TV expert Dietmar Hamann gave the work done a certificate of the extra class: “One with a star.”
Eintracht Frankfurt: Not yet recovered from the defeat against Dortmund
And even at the beginning of the new year, in the home game against Borussia Dortmund, the team threw a performance on the pitch that lasted for a long time. “The ball runs through the ranks as if pulled by a string, and the team is always trying to find footballing solutions. The development of the style of play is remarkable,” wrote FR in January after the BVB game: “Dortmund were overwhelmed by the power, strength and pace of the Hessians.”
But maybe this game was a kind of key experience, the turning point – towards the bad. Because the start of the second half of the season ultimately went haywire, 2:0 became 2:3. The beginning of the end, sort of.
Eintracht has not recovered from this to this day, it almost seems as if something broke that evening in the city forest. Since then, a lot has fallen by the wayside, the sovereignty, the idea of football, the strength of form, the scratchiness, the automatism, the self-confidence and the collective approach. When Captain Sebastian Rode now warns: “We must remain a unit and must not tear ourselves apart,” then that gives a deep insight.
Eintracht Frankfurt: Glasner loses his composure – Kamada feels the anger of the coach
Oliver Glasner is not setting a shining example either. Playmaker Daichi Kamada felt the anger of the coach after Eintracht’s recent 0-1 draw in Cologne, who scolded him on the field. A coach is of course entitled to criticize the players, sometimes in public, but in an appropriate form. Putting an actor down in front of the TV cameras is not a brilliant achievement. A head coach should have better control over that. It is not a good signal, internally or externally, and it is not fair either. Kamada was already rafted enough with his substitution after being substituted on.
There is another way. Martin Hinteregger, for example, was always (and rightly so) protected by Glasner, although he shot several big bucks at the same time. The handling should now be interesting, whether the Japanese has fallen or is involved again and maybe even nursed back. Other players are also amazed at how quickly they rotate out of the team. Danny da Costa, for example, is out immediately if the performance isn’t right. Others like Ajdin Hrustic score two goals, become the match winner and are still not used.
This inner turmoil is reflected on the field. The original virtues that distinguished the team under Niko Kovac and Adi Hütter and at times also under Glasner in recent years have been lost, the radical, the unconditional, the wild. But that made Eintracht strong. It was always disgusting to play against the Hessians, hard work. But after the recent defeat in Cologne, a contrite Glasner realized that the duel record was bad and complained in general: “Sometimes we don’t defend ourselves enough.”
Eintracht Frankfurt: Self-confidence is gone
Glasner has also changed the approach, shifting priorities and putting the focus on defense. In Cologne there were now only three attacking players on the pitch: Rafael Borré as the sole entertainer up front, behind him Jesper Lindström and on the left Filip Kostic, who was so busy with defensive tasks that he couldn’t do anything on the offensive. So if Kostic has to play like in the Rhineland, you don’t have to set up Kostic, Christopher Lenz could also play at left-back, just like Christoph Spycher or Bastian Oczipka.
In addition, in the course of the defeats, the self-confidence has gone, but some players need it extremely to push through their game and to promote their strengths. Martin Hinteregger, for example, who even voluntarily gave up the captaincy to Kevin Trapp in Cologne so that he could concentrate more on his own performance. Or Djibril Sov. The Swiss, recently praised as a discovery by sports director Markus Krösche, has fallen back into old patterns of behavior, plays passively, thinks carefully, fits across. Sow is a reflection of the whole team.
And for some players it’s also a question of quality. Up front, the brave, 1.74 meter tall Borré continues to fight against all sorts of defensive giants and is either fed high balls or left all alone, and in midfield the playfully limited Kristijan Jakic hangs in at a level that is far from up to the top of the Bundesliga . Perhaps Eintracht should have improved there, but decided to strengthen the weak right flank, where Ansgar Knauf should increase quality. Of course, he hasn’t gotten a real chance yet.