Eintracht Frankfurt welcomes VfL Wolfsburg: SBU backpack is gone

• fromThomas Kilchenstein

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Eintracht Frankfurt wants to gild the Stuttgart victory in the home game against VfL Wolfsburg. It’s a special game for coach Oliver Glasner.

Frankfurt – Before the game against his former club, which he surprisingly led to the Champions League last year and which has just as surprisingly faltered this season, before the game against VfL Wolfsburg, Oliver Glasner came up with something special How Eintracht Frankfurt could play next to Max Kruse, who was freshly committed ten days ago, from the Wolves game. You have to know that the 33-year-old likes to score against the Hessians, and he is also considered to be someone who decides a game with one or two actions. In order to stop him, the Frankfurt coach revealed with a big smile, they plan to quickly organize a poker tournament in front of 10,000 fans the evening before the encounter on Saturday (3:30 p.m. / Sky): “And we hope that he is in.”

Of course, Oliver Glasner was only joking, he would never focus all his attention on just one opponent’s player, even if it’s Max Kruse, his team should work on the strengths of the opponents collectively and anyway focus more on getting their own game through . This also applies to the game against VfL Wolfsburg, which is not exactly normal for him. “I had two very successful years in Wolfsburg”, which is why the encounter against VfL is still special.

Eintracht Frankfurt with respect for Wolfsburg

The respect for his former employer is still great, Glasner claims to have noticed a “spirit of optimism” at the Mittellandkanal after the 4-1 win over bottom Greuther Fürth, after all it was the first success after ten competitive games without a win. And in any case, VfL Wolfsburg with its squad and its regular lavish financial injections from the VW Group have long since belonged “in completely different regions of the table”. Around the time they met in the first leg, VfL were nine points ahead of Hessen, and Frankfurt are now seven points ahead. And this cushion should be expanded on Saturday, even if the coach, as usual, expects a “difficult game”.

But he is also looking forward to the game with some confidence, the training week convinced him that it was “super intensive”, and the coach has plenty of staff to draw on – with the exception of Makoto Hasebe, who is said to be doing better after his chest contusion. In addition, after last week’s victory at VfB Stuttgart, “a few backpacks fell off”. Many things, according to the 47-year-old Austrian, were easier for many this week.

Eintracht Frankfurt: Keep the ball flat

As is so often the case, Eintracht is at a fork in the road: with a win against Wolfsburg, they could knock higher up, fourth place is only three points for the ninth place in the table, behind Bayer Leverkusen there are now seven clubs fighting for the meat pots on the international stage . But that’s exactly what you shouldn’t do, coach Glasner warns, namely squinting at fourth place.

One should ask oneself much more, for example, how the Wolfsburg defense with an average height of 1.91 meters can be cracked – with own strikers like Rafael Borré (1.74) and Jesper Lindström (1.82). It is probably better to keep the ball flat in this case.

Eintracht Frankfurt: 80 percent Kostic is enough

And avoid high crosses as far as possible, which automatically leads you to Filip Kostic, widely appreciated as a cross machine and powerhouse. The fast Serb has cured his infection, but he’s not yet at 100 percent performance, says Glasner, and he can’t even be at all.

Since mid-December he has been absent again and again, sometimes with Covid-19, sometimes because of Achilles tendon problems, sometimes, like now, because of the flu. In the past six weeks, the left foot has been able to complete eight or nine training sessions. But, and that’s what’s extraordinary about Kostic: “He’s still good for us with 80 percent,” says Glasner, who still has to weigh up whether he chooses the more offensive variant (with Kostic) or the more defensive variant (with Christopher Lenz) for Saturday . With both in the starting formation is rather not to be expected.

In return, the football coach clearly spoke out in favor of Martin Hinteregger as Hasebe’s replacement: “Martin is playing.” He, Glasner, had seen a “committed Martin Hinteregger” during this training week, who was doing everything to get back to his old level . The Kärtner had hardly managed to do that recently, but on the other hand Glasner doesn’t forget to mention that the proud 5-2 win against Bayer Leverkusen was achieved with “Hinti” in defense.

He probably just didn’t take part in the poker tournament that night. (Thomas Kilchenstein)

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