Dhe picture spoke volumes. Stoic, thoughtful, withdrawn: When it came to looking for explanations in the hour of the setback, the frustrated Frankfurt football coach limited himself to the essentials. “We deserved to lose,” said Oliver Glasner. “I take 100 percent responsibility for this defeat. It was my lineup and my system. A lot of things didn’t fit.”
A whole lot didn’t fit on this busy day in the stadium on Castroper Straße. The fact that the Eintracht entourage left with a 3-0 defeat at VfL Bochum weighed heavily on Glasner’s shoulders. The Eintracht coach had never been so depressed when he was working in Frankfurt. The visibly battered Glasner sat on the elevated press podium in the small Bochum media room in a large sports seat. In terms of sport, things could have gone better for his team in a duel with the bottom of the table. But whatever his pros did, it was a throwback to old, seemingly forgotten times.
In the middle of two highlight games in the Champions League against the English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur (second leg in London on Wednesday, 9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Champions League and on DAZN), Eintracht showed their worst game of the season. Memories of the bloodless 0:1 at home against VfL Wolfsburg were awakened. In the game that followed, away at Olympique Marseille, the Glasner team turned the game around. The French were defeated 1-0, and their core business, the Bundesliga, was also won abroad with a 3-1 win in Stuttgart.
Away games – that has been the pound of Eintracht so far. But now the first defeat far from Frankfurt. “We had the chance to take the lead at 0-0, later a shot on the post and an offside goal,” Glasner listed the missed opportunities. On the other hand: “We conceded three goals from set pieces. Bitter.”
Eintracht not present enough
On a day like this, like Eintracht experienced in Bochum, little or nothing went together. “Attitude, tackling values, footballing skills – something was missing from everything,” said Markus Krösche. Eintracht’s sporting director knew: “We weren’t present or focused enough from the start. We weren’t good, we weren’t there.” A devastating testimony to a “poor performance that shouldn’t happen to us like this”.
For Lucas Alario, the day seemed perfect until kick-off. The Argentine had turned 30 on the day of the game. His starting eleven nomination as a small birthday present? Precisely because coach Glasner had decided to make personnel and tactical changes, this was also Alario’s chance. The stormy South American could and should finally show that he deserves a place other than on the bench. Alario tried his best and towards the end of the game he helped out with a number of headers won in his own half. But it wasn’t what he had imagined. Alario was unable to add a lasting touch of color to the uniform gray of this sporty, dreary day.
Because Makoto Hasebe didn’t make the business trip deep west at all and captain Sebastian Rode was initially on the bench, Kevin Trapp took over as captain. The goalkeeper knows all about not only being on the post between the posts. He is also entitled to instruct the people in front of him. Coach Glasner wanted to discuss the fact that he skirmished with Tuta in the phase of the Bochum liberation blows with lots of gestures and words. But the Eintracht coach let it be known that it would be okay if the experienced Trapp gave the young Tuta his opinion.
The Eintracht players’ need for communication, even and especially after a disappointing defeat, was zero. Not a single player came into the mixed zone. Trapp preferred to look into a TV camera and say: “We’ve been calm over the past few weeks, we’ve played good football and we’ve been very good in tackles. It wasn’t like that today. We made a lot of mistakes, including unnecessary ones. Every second ball felt like it was gone.”
Gone was the chance to move up further in the table. Sixth was Eintracht before the trip to Bochum. She could have been third if she was successful. She ended up eighth. “We actually knew from last year how Bochum played,” said Trapp. “But if you miss the crucial things, it will be difficult against any team in the Bundesliga.” Even against VfL, who seemed defeated beforehand, who showed everything that Eintracht had to offer in the premier class against Tottenham: will, heart and passion.
