Next damper: Gladbach loses 1: 3 against Frankfurt. – Sports
In the Rhineland, the Eintracht Frankfurt footballers have recently spread fear and terror. Within eight days, the Hessians won at home against Bayer Leverkusen 5-1 and on Saturday evening at Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1 (3-0). Next Wednesday will show whether this also intimidates Olympique Marseille, whose home on the Côte d’Azur is only very slightly adjacent to the Rhineland. Then the Frankfurters go against the French with all the necessary self-confidence in a Champions League home game, which they absolutely have to win in order to keep their chances of reaching the round of 16.
“Marseille can come,” said midfielder Sebastian Rode in Mönchengladbach after a win that he called “valuable” “also for the regeneration in these weeks, in which we have a game every three days”. In the 77th minute, the game in Borussia-Park had to be interrupted for almost seven minutes because a cable on the TV camera flying back and forth on four cables over the field had come loose. However, this did not upset the people of Frankfurt. She leads 3:1 at this point and plays the lead in her 18th competitive game of the season confidently over time. “Fantastic,” said Rode exuberantly, “The way we win in Mönchengladbach.”
“We have great footballing quality and ball-safe players,” says Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner
Coach Oliver Glasner is also quite happy with his team at the moment: “We have great footballing quality and players who are sure of the ball and who are always ready to cover incredible kilometers.” He knows his team is “in good shape for the next games,” the coach explained not only about the all-or-nothing game against Marseille on Wednesday, but also about the top Bundesliga game next Saturday night against Borussia Dortmund.
Frankfurt is now fourth in the Bundesliga. Gladbach’s hopes for this place were initially clouded in the game against Eintracht. Ironically, captain Lars Stindl, who had returned to replace the injured Jonas Hofmann in the starting XI, had handed the Frankfurters the invitation to the opening goal in the sixth minute. He played the ball so cleanly in front of the Eintracht defender Evan Ndicka near the Frankfurt penalty area that he quickly served Kolo Muani and sent Jesper Lindström steeply to make it 1-0. The Frankfurters are generally envied for such lightning-fast midfield bridging – also by Gladbach’s coach Daniel Farke: “I’m a fan of Oliver Glasner’s football,” he said before the game about the Eintracht coach. He then refrains from getting an autograph from his colleague in the sixth minute.
The fact that Gladbach had to play without the injured Hofmann and without the injured goalkeeper Yann Sommer was a shortcoming; It was no longer a big surprise that midfielder Florian Neuhaus, who had been injured on his knee for a long time, officially announced to Sky that he would soon become a World Cup paradise. Although full-back Ramy Bensebaini and striker Marcus Thuram are fit, Borussia’s sporting director Roland Virkus recently dampened hopes of being able to extend their contracts, which expire next summer.
“We are far from being a top team,” says Gladbach coach Daniel Farke
Such personal details show that Gladbach’s hoped-for path to the top third of the table IS thorny. That’s exactly what the merciless Frankfurters drummed into them in the 29th minute when Dina Ebimbe headed in a corner from Christopher Lenz to make it 2-0.
After Gladbach’s 1-2 cup loss at second division Darmstadt, the defeat against Frankfurt meant the next setback for all those Lower Rhine optimists who would actually like to see Borussia play internationally again next season. But it will be difficult to achieve that: “We are far from being a top team,” admits coach Farke every week, it is one of his most common sentences. As if to confirm, his men let Frankfurt’s Lindström score the goal to make it 3-0 in the 45th minute – which was acknowledged with whistles from the Gladbach fan blocks at the break.
A careless Frankfurt error by Kristijan Jakic in the 72nd minute allowed Gladbach to score the consolation goal to make it 1:3. With his eighth goal of the season, Thuram caught up with the best in the league, Niclas Füllkrug (Bremen) and Christopher Nkunku (Leipzig). “Frankfurt’s victory was deserved,” said Schloss Farke, but put it into perspective: “What we currently have available in terms of personnel is borderline, but because we don’t play in Europe, our squad isn’t that broad and we’re trying to make the best of it make .”