Injury after 17 seconds
Frankfurt’s regular goalkeeper will be missing for weeks
03/02/2026 – 3:31 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
In terms of sport, things have been going better again at Eintracht Frankfurt since the change of coach. Albert Riera will have to do without his regular goalkeeper in the coming weeks.
Goalkeeper Kauã Santos will be missing from Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt for weeks. The Hessians announced this on Monday. The Brazilian injured the medial ligament in his knee in the 2-0 home win against SC Freiburg. At least: The 22-year-old did not injure his cruciate ligament again.
The scene occurred early in the game. Only 17 seconds had been completed when Kauã Santos was injured in a duel with former Frankfurt player Igor Matanović. Frankfurt coach Albert Riera said after the game: “I watched the replay on the video. The action doesn’t look good. We hope for the best and keep our fingers crossed.”
The keeper had to take a long break last year. At that time, a torn cruciate ligament in his right knee put him out of action for months. The injury was treated conservatively, i.e. without surgery.
Michael Zetterer came into the game for Kauã Santos against Freiburg. The 30-year-old moved from Werder Bremen to Frankfurt last summer and made no mistakes on Sunday. Frankfurt’s sports director Markus Krösche said: “It’s not so easy to go into the goal from cold pants. So you can see a bit of the experience that he has in certain situations. And he also held one or two balls well.”
With the new failure, the interplay in the Frankfurt goal continues. After Kauã Santos tore his cruciate ligament, Zetterer initially stood between the posts at the start of the season. When the Brazilian returned, Riera’s predecessor Dino Toppmöller named him number one. After several mistakes, Toppmöller relied on Zetterer again at the end of October. Because he wasn’t consistently convincing either, Kauã Santos has been in Eintracht’s goal again since the beginning of 2026.
