Europa League against Ferencvaros: Frankfurt with one and a half legs in the round of 16

Eintracht Frankfurt celebrated their fifth win in their seventh Europa League game against Budapest. The round of 16 is within reach.

Eintracht Frankfurt cleared the next hurdle in the league phase of the Europa League on Thursday evening. Against a completely overwhelmed Ferencvaros Budapest, the Hessians won 2-0 (0-0). Can Uzun (49th) and Hugo Ekitiké (59th) scored well worth seeing for the home team, who can probably pass on the second round of the competition.

Eintracht has everything under control

The roles were assigned seconds after kick-off: Eintracht took the game, the Hungarians were waiting for a counterattack. It wasn’t productive for anyone at first. The home team had everything under control against limited guests and won many balls in the opponent’s half. However, the SGE also gave away some balls unnecessarily. The lack of automatism was clearly visible, especially in the interaction up front with Can Uzun. As the game went on, the Hessians got better and better into the game.

Hugo Ekitiké won one of the early balls mentioned above, but shot too centrally from 15 meters (19′). The better option would have been to pass to Mario Götze, who was running on the right. But Ferencvaros keeper Denes Dibusz was able to clear the ball. Adam Varga, who replaced Dibusz in the visitors’ goal, grabbed Ansgar Knauff’s shot (38′), which was also too central. The Budapest number one injured his hip in almost his only action.

Youngster Uzun aimed clearly too high (41′), Skhiri almost shot Habib Maiga’s skull off (44′). The midfielder was able to continue after a short treatment break. Despite 70 percent possession of the ball for the Hessians, the break went goalless.

Everything was clear in eleven minutes

The Hessians continued where they left off in the second half – just more determinedly. Ekitiké came up short in a one-on-one with Varga (49′), but just seconds later a long-range shot from Uzun hit the corner (49′). It shouldn’t be the last goal worth seeing that evening.

Only nine minutes later, Ekitiké got the ball with a bit of luck, but switched quickly in the six-yard box. The Frenchman tunneled his opponent with the outside of his foot and poked the ball past Varga, who was rushing out, into the goal (59′). The rest was routine downplaying.

Ninth place is safe

Eintracht climbs thanks to the new victory Second place in the tablecould be on the last match day next week but still fall back to ninth place. The first eight teams qualify directly for the round of 16 of the competition, places 9 to 24 have to do an extra round in the so-called play-offs beforehand. But everything would have to go wrong for Eintracht not to be among the top eight teams at that time in seven days.

What is already clear is that Eintracht can nominate new players for the knockout round. High-flyer Nathaniel Brown will certainly be one of them. Elye Wahi, who will be signed as a replacement for Omar Marmoush in the coming dayspossibly another one. At AS Roma, the Hessians have to play again with tried and tested forces. It wasn’t that bad so far.