Adi Hütter is back at Eintracht Frankfurt and even turned down other high-profile offers. The Austrian is sure: this is where he belongs.
Adi Hütter is actually a professional through and through. The Austrian is a straightforward guy, knows what he wants and – perhaps even more so – what he doesn’t want. But when he returned to Frankfurt, the man Adi Hütter showed up and his voice almost broke.
Hütter has turned down “lucrative offers”.
“I’m emotionally touched. I have the feeling that I belong here and that I’m not finished yet,” said Hütter at a press conference on Monday with shining eyes, looking at sports director Markus Krösche, who was sitting with him on the podium, and board spokesman Axel Hellmann, who had placed himself at the back of the room. Hütter, tanned from the Mallorcan holiday sun, is grateful for this second chance at Eintracht – and he really wanted it.
“I had several opportunities to take on something very lucrative in Europe’s top leagues, but when I felt that Eintracht was interested, it really gripped me emotionally,” said the 56-year-old.
Old success cannot be copied
Hütter led Eintracht from 2018 to 2021, playing brutal football that the fans could identify with. The “herd of buffalo” (Luka Jovic, Ante Rebic and Sebastien Haller), which Hütter once unleashed on the Bundesliga, has long been an integral part of Frankfurt football folklore.
However, old success cannot simply be repeated one-to-one. This is not only known by the statistics, which say that no Eintracht coach has been more successful in his second term of office than in his first, Adi Hütter also knows this. Even if he doesn’t think much of such statistics (“Otherwise I wouldn’t have come back”).
Hard work awaits Eintracht
In the Hütter 2.0 era, Eintracht should play intensively again, but not act as a mere counterattacking team. “I have developed further as a coach,” said the Austrian, who was forced to play more possession football with the French top team from Monaco. Hütter should finally succeed in Frankfurt where his predecessors failed: that the team plays attractive offensive football without neglecting the defense.
Together with Krösche, with whom he has already spoken in detail several times, the first step is to put together a powerful squad for this project. Hütter didn’t go into detail, but he did make it clear that the players needed “the right attitude” and that “hard work” awaited them. Hütter has come to put the Frankfurters out of their bad habits. Anyone who doesn’t go along with it has no future with him.
Adi Hütter expects professionalism in his work as head trainer. Of himself and his team. That was the case before, it is still the case today. His emotional return hasn’t changed that.
