Eintracht no longer have to look for their new coach. Oliver Glasner's successor has already been chosen. Frankfurt's sporting director Markus Krösche said on Thursday: "We are very confident that we have found the right person and made a very good decision," he said in an interview with the club. Krösche has not yet mentioned the name of the new Frankfurt football coach. It will be Dino Toppmöller. After two coaches from Austria (Glasner and Adi Hütter), the 42-year-old native of Saarland will be in charge of the coaching bench on the Main in the future.

Jörg Daniels

Editor in the sports editorial department

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Five days after losing the cup final against Leipzig (0:2), Krösche held out the prospect of being able to "announce something in a timely manner" in the essential personnel matter. At the beginning of next week at the latest, the signing of Toppmöller is now to be officially announced. The Hessians have long been in agreement with him. And Krösche can rely on the coach's word. As sporting director of RB Leipzig, he had piloted Toppmöller to the Saxons in 2020; he became assistant coach to Julian Nagelsmann.

After Krösche's departure to Eintracht a year later, the two kept in touch. Now the Frankfurters only have to clarify the transfer fee for Toppmöller with Bayern Munich. At the German champions, he had been released together with his boss Nagelsmann at the end of March.

Toppmöller still has a contract in Munich until July 1, 2024. The Bavarians are said to have an amount of 500,000 euros in mind. Eintracht, on the other hand, are aiming for half of the sum. Somewhere in the middle, both clubs will then come to a result. The negotiations are said to be in the final stage, and failure is hardly conceivable on the merits.

Good instinct and skill

For Krösche, the Frankfurt coach of the future is someone who is ready to "follow the path of Eintracht Frankfurt and further develop our style of play". From his point of view, the coach must be able to make young players better. He must bet on them and trust them. Especially in this respect, Glasner no longer met the expectations of the sporting director.

Krösche got the impression that the former coach was too rigid in his thinking and not flexible enough, that Glasner was a bit trapped in his system. Talented young players such as Dortmund loanee Ansgar Knauff, whom Eintracht will now bind to him for a transfer fee of just under five million euros, and Faride Alidou made no progress in their development under the Austrian. Toppmöller, on the other hand, is said to have a good instinct and a lot of skill in dealing with talent.

As a replacement for Evan Ndicka, who refused to extend his contract, Eintracht signed 21-year-old Willian Pacho from Belgian champions Royal Antwerp as a left centre-back for the new round. Cost: around nine million euros. And the 18-year-old midfielder Hugo Larsson joins Eintracht from Malmö FF this summer, costing him around 7.5 million euros.

"Part of our philosophy is to sign players who will help us achieve our goals. But also to sign young players to develop them further and enable them to take the next step in their careers," says Krösche. If they then develop faster and "want to take the next step, then we can generate transfer proceeds. That's what we need," said the sporting director.

Eintracht should play "offensive and courageous football" under new coach Toppmöller. "Not the Wild West, always with the necessary control," as Krösche puts it. To do this, Frankfurt needed "courageous players with certain skills – a good mix of physique and technique, and of course speed. In certain areas," demands the sporting director, "we have to develop further because the demands on us and the perception of us have changed." Krösche no longer trusted Glasner to initiate this process and then implement the specifications in a targeted manner. Toppmöller, the sporting director is sure, will bring a lot of movement into the matter - for the benefit and joy of his new employer.