No banners in the stadium against the sporting director. But a loud commitment to the coach. Yes, Oliver Glasner is still the football coach in charge of Eintracht Frankfurt. And yes, his team, which he has to leave in the summer, one year before the end of the originally agreed working relationship, has not forgotten how to win. The fact that they have taken a particularly long run to win a game for points for the first time since mid-February is one of the many peculiarities and peculiarities in the Bundesliga business.
In the 3-0 win against Mainz 05, a lot, a lot, was right for Eintracht. The weak zero fives on Saturday were the right opponent at the right time, because the recently unsettled Frankfurters simply needed to do what they can normally do and have already shown and proven sufficiently in the first half of the season: play respectable football. Captain Sebastian Rode is right in his assessment that Aurelio Buta would not have scored such a great and fascinating goal as he did against Mainz last week.
In the defeat against Hoffenheim, a lot of things got out of hand at Eintracht. But now, against the first-class neighbour from Rhineland-Palatinate, who has played an excellent season so far, almost everything has fit. The fact that the suspended coach Glasner had to watch the lively hustle and bustle from a distance and behind a pane of glass and could not actively intervene did not play a role in the overall view. At the team, many things that were taken for granted worked again at the push of a button, and the assistant Michael Angerschmid, who was on the sidelines for this one game, didn't have to do much either.
It is pleasing that Almamy Touré, a man in the three-man defensive chain, is ready for the final spurt, who can step in for Makoto Hasebe, who has recently been under constant strain, if the worst comes to the worst. A year ago, when it came to the final spurt with the happy ending in Seville, the outgoing Frenchman got up to speed and played big at times. What would have been possible for Eintracht if it hadn't been for those horrible ten weeks in everyday play? The light at the end of the tunnel in which Glasner imagines himself on his farewell trip to Europe would be brighter, clearer, more unambiguous.
After all, the first contours on the desired path to the Europa or Conference League can be seen again. But with the plan to perhaps make the leap into the top seven and thus the return to the European Cup via the core business of the Bundesliga, Eintracht is dependent on the help of the others. It's no surprise that Wolfsburg and Leverkusen are ahead of Frankfurt. Both teams have been showing consistently appealing performances for weeks. Concord does not.