VEintracht Frankfurt no longer have many opportunities to save this season, which started so promisingly and in which the performance curve then pointed rapidly downwards. The team was also not able to use the chance offered by the 30th Bundesliga matchday satisfactorily: Due to the 1-1 draw against FC Augsburg, the team was again unable to continue its winless streak, which had been in the first class since the middle February keeps ending.
As a result, the hope of being able to qualify for international competition through day-to-day business fell even further. Eintracht currently has 43 points, four games before the end of the round, which is only enough for ninth place in the table. She has to finish sixth to be safe in Europe.
In addition, however, there is still the option of winning the DFB Cup at the beginning of June to win the right to start or to benefit from Leipzig and Freiburg’s participation in the Champions League. At the moment there is no imagination as to how the Frankfurters could start a brilliant final spurt on their own, which would brighten up the weak picture that they have all been giving for some time at the last minute.
“That was another blow to the neck,” stated goalkeeper Kevin Trapp resignedly. He spoke of a “funny game from us” in which he and the people in front of him had done a lot “not well”. “We would do well to forget this game quickly.” His comments on the relationship between coach Oliver Glasner and the team left room for interpretation. “We’ll be together for the next four weeks and then we’ll see. If you read the coach’s interviews, he leaves everything open,” said Trapp.
The coach, in turn, tried to convey composure regarding the speculation about his person. When asked at the press conference whether he still felt secure in his seat due to the ongoing negative trend, he said he felt “very relaxed” – even if his body language conveyed different impressions. “If someone thinks they can do better than Oliver Glasner, then I’ll pack my things,” he said in a weak voice about himself in the third person. “But no one has done it better than me. That’s why I’m confident.”
Sports director Markus Krösche struck a harsh tone in his balance sheet, which was only aimed at the players. “The team doesn’t seem to have understood what today was about,” he said, considering the next missed opportunity. He expects, Krösche made unmistakably clear, that Eintracht will now win the cup semifinals this Wednesday (8.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the DFB Cup and on ARD) in Stuttgart: “We have to force things.”
The 42-year-old also took a stand himself. He rejected reports that he was drawn to Chelsea FC as inaccurate: “I read it too, but there was no contact. I can rule out that I will leave Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer.”