The dream of the round of 16 is alive: Eintracht Frankfurt has fought for a final on the magical premier class journey to progress.
Coach Oliver Glasner’s team won the atmospheric game of destiny against Olympique Marseille 2-1 (2-1) and on the last day of the Champions League at Sporting Lisbon they can shoot themselves among the 16 best teams in Europe on their own.
In the Frankfurt cauldron, Daichi Kamada (3rd) and Randal Kolo Muani (27th) scored to win, Matteo Guendouzi (22nd) had equalized in the meantime. With a win in Lisbon on Tuesday, Frankfurt would continue their dream journey in the round of 16, for the Europa League winner from first to fourth place in Group D anything is still possible.
“We can do finals. It took a lot of strength. We played a really good game. It will be a very intense game in Lisbon,” said strong goalkeeper Kevin Trapp on “DAZN”.
Unlike in the first leg, this time it remained largely peaceful in the stands. There had been violent riots with pyrotechnics in Marseille, and an SGE fan was seriously injured.
Eintracht Frankfurt makes a dream start
On the field, Glasner trusted the team that had last won at Borussia Mönchengladbach (3-1) and Bayer Leverkusen (5-1). Only Hrvoje Smolcic replaced the suspended Tuta in the back line. Glasner didn’t want to deal with “calculating around” in the competitive group, this “usually led to very little,” he said.
That was exactly what was felt in his eleven, who got off to a dream start in front of 48,700 fans. Kamada immediately completed the first perfect attack to take the lead. Grippy, passionate and offensively dangerous – this is how the SGE presented itself in the strong initial phase, only the exploitation of chances didn’t fit.
World Cup hero Mario Götze (15th), who has legitimate hopes for the tournament in Qatar, and Christopher Lenz (19th) missed the best chances. And so Marseille came back almost out of nowhere: ex-Hertha player Guendouzi’s shot from a cross hit the bar.
SGE’s strength is dwindling
Eintracht continued undeterred, and the shock was immediately followed by the right answer. After a fantastic preparatory work by Götze in front of the eyes of national coach Hansi Flick, Kolo Muani scored a deserved lead at the break in an extremely hard-fought game.
After the change of sides, however, the Hessians came under increasing pressure. The defense wobbled a bit at the beginning and was only able to free itself from some tricky situations with difficulty. With the best chance, Alexis Sánchez (57th) lobbed the ball just wide of the goal.
The forces of Glasner’s team dwindled, but Eintracht continued to throw everything into the balance. However, the hosts failed to play one of the numerous counterattacks better and to ensure clearer conditions.