What madness! Eintracht Frankfurt is sensationally in the semi-finals of the Europa League. The Hessians won the second leg of the quarter-finals at FC Barcelona in the Camp Nou on Thursday evening after a tremendous performance 3-2 (2-0). The goals for Frankfurt were scored by Filip Kostic (4th FE/67th) and Rafael Borré (36th). For Barca, Sergio Busquets (90+1) and Memphis Depay scored a penalty kick (90+11) in injury time.
The game started with an absolute bang: Eintracht, without the injured Djibril Sow, put pressure on Barca from the start and were immediately rewarded. Defender Eric Garcia put down Jesper Lindström in the penalty area and Kostic took the penalty. It was the start of a historic football evening.
Few Barca opportunities
Barca shook themselves briefly and then had control of the game with enormous possession of the ball. The Catalans put a lot of pressure on ex-BVB professional Ousmane Dembélé in particular and almost exclusively played in the half of the Hessians. It was the expected encounter purely from the field advantages.
The good from Frankfurt’s point of view in the first section: Really good opportunities did not arise despite the field advantages for Barca. A header from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (9′), which went over the goal, and a finish from Ronald Araujo (18′), with Kevin Trapp on hand, were the only half-chances for the Catalans for a long time.
Borré scores with a dream goal
Frankfurt showed how it’s done in the 36th minute: Borré took heart from a good 20 meters and nailed the thing under the bar. An absolute dream goal! It could have been 3-0 at the break, but Kristijan Jakic failed because of Marc André ter Stegen (39th) and Knauff aimed just wide of the Barca keeper (44th). So it went with the two-goal lead at the break.
The question now was how the Catalans would react to this 45-minute humiliation. The first answer: angry. Aubameyang had a great chance to score in the 48th minute, but failed to hit the ball properly in front of goal. Just seven minutes later, the ex-Dortmund failed because of Trapp.
Kostic makes the decision
But that was it for a long time. After that, Eintracht had their chances again. In the 58th minute, Lindström appeared clear in front of Ter Stegen, but missed the preliminary decision. A few minutes later, Kostic did better, his shot from the left was perfect – 3:0 (67th)! At the Camp Nou, “Oh, how beautiful it is” rang through the round.
Daichi Kamada could have scored the fourth goal in the 78th minute, but his shot went just wide. In stoppage time, Busquets scored for the Catalans to make it 3-1, after which things got hectic again. Depay even made it 3-2 with a penalty in the eleventh minute of added time. Evan N’Dicka saw the yellow-red card for this. But that was it, the sensation was perfect. In the semi-finals, Frankfurt will now face West Ham United.
Source: HR