Late shock for Frankfurt
Stuttgart wins spectacular Bundesliga top game
Updated January 13, 2026 – 8:45 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
VfB Stuttgart and Eintracht Frankfurt opened the 17th Bundesliga matchday on Tuesday. At the end there was a goal spectacle.
Both VfB Stuttgart and Eintracht Frankfurt had set exclamation marks at the start of the 2026 Bundesliga year: The Swabians won 4-1 against runner-up Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday, and the Hessians drew 3-3 from second-placed Dortmund on Friday. On Tuesday, Stuttgart and Frankfurt met in a direct duel and gave the spectators a brilliant game with a score of 3:2 (2:1).
Rasmus Kristensen gave the guests from Main the lead after just five minutes, Ermedin Demirović (27th) and Deniz Undav (35th) then turned the game around for VfB. Ayoube Amaimouni-Echghouyab equalized for the SGE in the final phase (80th), but Nikolas Nartey finally had the last word with his goal to make it 3-2 (87th).
Stuttgart will move up to third place in the table with their next top game win, while Frankfurt will remain seventh and could be overtaken by Freiburg during the matchday.
The Frankfurt team got off to a perfect start in front of 59,500 spectators, but had to accept several setbacks in the course of the first half – first due to injury, then through individual mistakes.
A header from the Dane Kristensen, in which VfB goalkeeper Alexander Nübel was quite uninvolved on his own line, gave the guests the early lead. However, the Stuttgart team did not let this deter them and looked for a way forward – as with a courageous attempt by Chris Führich (8th). What the DFB Cup winner initially lacked, however, was penetration.
After 20 minutes there was the first setback for Eintracht: new signing Ebnoutalib had to be replaced with an injury. He collided with Stuttgart’s Jeff Chabot. And that’s not enough for the people of Frankfurt. Keeper Kauã Santos dropped a cross at Demirović’s feet. The Stuttgart player was there and scored 1-1 in his first start after a month-long injury layoff. It wasn’t Santos’ only uncertainty, as he also had a heated argument with teammate Arthur Theate a little later.