A few whistles from the ranks, great frustration and disappointment among the players: Europa League winner Eintracht Frankfurt is increasingly losing sight of its goals for the season in the midst of turbulent days.
Despite a dominant performance, the team coached by Oliver Glasner was unable to get past a 1-1 (1-1) draw against relegation-threatened VfL Bochum in the Bundesliga and has been waiting for a competitive win since mid-February. The goal by Randal Kolo Muani (22nd minute / penalty kick) was not enough for Eintracht in front of 50,000 spectators after Takuma Asano (14th) conceded an early goal.
The long-awaited return to the Champions League is becoming more and more distant for the Frankfurters, who, in addition to a sporting crisis, are also struggling with an internal power struggle over board spokesman Axel Hellmann and supervisory board boss Philip Holzer. The dress rehearsal for the DFB Cup on Tuesday (6 p.m.) against 1. FC Union Berlin failed. “It’s a shame that we didn’t win the game. You can’t blame the team much,” said Eintracht sports director Markus Krösche on the DAZN streaming service.
Max: “It’s incredibly bitter”
“It was also a game on goal in the second half. We had an incredible number of chances to score. It’s incredibly bitter and annoying that you don’t win the game,” said Frankfurt’s Philipp Max and attested his team a “better performance” than last. “We can’t do more. It just has to ring again.”
Bochum and coach Thomas Letsch, on the other hand, can live with the point in the relegation battle after the last two wins. “Frankfurt were obviously decisive. But we threw everything back in. We’re absolutely satisfied with the point,” stated Bochum’s Philipp Hofmann.
The start of the 26th Bundesliga match day was also the start of the “Stop Racism” campaign, with which the German professional clubs want to take a stand against racism and exclusion this weekend.
Trapp with Asano margin without a chance
For Eintracht coach Glasner, everything was initially the same as in the past few weeks: Up front, his players around Rafael Borré (7th and 10th) proliferated with the chances, at the back, the simplest mistakes were punished.
With a view to the many goals conceded after standards and long balls, the coach from Austria at DAZN spoke of a “never ending story” – it should not end on this uncomfortable floodlit Friday either. A long throw-in by Christopher Antwi-Adjei became a great danger because two players were completely blank in the middle. World Cup participant Kevin Trapp parried Anthony Losilla’s shot, but he had no chance when Asano added it. The next setback was looming for the Hessians who had not won in six competitive games.
Eintracht without luck in the final, Riemann strong
But Eintracht, led by striker Kolo Muani, played more playfully than they had in a long time. It was the French national striker who almost single-handedly equalized. First Kolo Muani made it into the penalty area, where Ivan Ordets brought him down just before the shot. Then he transformed from the point ice cold, it was his twelfth goal of the season. Ordets was well served with a yellow card for thwarting a clear scoring opportunity from close range. The powerful Eintracht had more scenes, but before the break the necessary precision was missing.
Even after the change, the European Cup winner played primarily. And the balls kept coming back to Kolo Muani, who failed in the long duel with Bochum goalkeeper Manuel Riemann with a header and then missed the ball when attempting an acrobatic overhead kick.
Bochum tried to save a point win in Frankfurt over time. Again Riemann (61) parried a free-kick from Philipp Max, previously a contact by Antwi-Adjei against Frankfurt’s Aurelio Buta in the penalty area was not enough for another penalty. It was fitting that a Borré header was cleared off the line. On the other hand, Frankfurt was lucky that a free kick from Kevin Stöger only landed on the crossbar.
