Eintracht Frankfurt gave up victory in a disjointed Hessen derby against SV Darmstadt 98. Coach Dino Toppmöller’s team lost a 2-0 lead against the bottom team in the Bundesliga on Saturday with a 2-2 (1-0) draw. In front of 17,550 spectators in the sold-out stadium at Böllenfalltor, Niels Nkounkou (33rd minute) and Ansgar Knauff (51st) scored the goals for the guests. One day after his signing was announced, Julian Justvan scored for the promoted team (62′), before Christoph Klarer scored the surprising equalizer in stoppage time (90’+5).
Head coach Torsten Lieberknecht’s lilies have been without a win for eleven games. and still only have eleven points after 18 match days. Midfielder Justvan, on loan from TSG Hoffenheim, was in the starting line-up for the Darmstadt team. Toppmöller trusted the same starting line-up as in the 1-0 win in Leipzig and took captain Sebastian Rode back into the squad. The 33-year-old was missing for months due to a persistent calf injury and came on in stoppage time.
Mario Götze tried to build up the guests’ game, but initially found hardly any gaps and often had to drop far behind. After a quarter of an hour, however, Nkounkou was through for the first time after a combination via Götze and Donny van de Beek, but shot straight at goalkeeper Marcel Schuhen. The bad passes increased on both sides.
“It has to crash sometimes,” Lieberknecht demanded in view of his team’s weak offensive. The Lilies had not scored a goal in their four previous home games. The bitter 3-0 loss against Borussia Dortmund a week ago and 44 goals conceded to date have also made the defensively vulnerable Darmstadt team more cautious.
Things became dangerous for Darmstadt at the back when junior Dina Ebimbe picked up speed on the right. An attack based on this pattern led to Eintracht taking the lead, with Nkounkou converting his cross. The 23-year-old Frenchman had shone as a preparer in Leipzig, and now he underlined his top form with the 1-0 win.
The relegation candidate from Darmstadt struggled as always and threw himself into all the duels, but hardly anything succeeded in the opponent’s penalty area. Justvan was initially unable to do much about it, even if he played a few clever passes. Frankfurt’s second goal shortly after the break was once again the result of preparatory work by Ebimbe: after an unsuccessful shot attempt by the agile newcomer Sasa Kalajdzic, Knauff was there.
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Following an assist from Justvan, Luca Pfeiffer, who failed to get the ball past national goalkeeper Kevin Trapp, missed the chance to score shortly afterwards. The former Hoffenheim player Justvan gave the LiIien hope again with the 1:2. In the final spurt, the outsiders celebrated when the Frankfurt team were too lethargic and longed for the end.