The new tone to which the players of Frankfurter Eintracht can adjust will be a fine and yet very definite one.
In the public perception, Oliver Glasner is not a speaker for paid football.
To conclude from this that he tends to remain quiet and nice, however, would be a mistake.
With Glasner, a head coach from VfL Wolfsburg changes to Eintracht, who carefully puts his finger in wounds. “I want to make every player better every day,” the Austrian promises with pleasure. That sounds grandiose, but corresponds to his nature. In everyday training, the introverted Glasner can become a real scratching brush. It reminds every player, regardless of their prominence and market value, of their respective task and the desired contribution to the bigger picture.
The amazing thing about Glasner's latest success remains: On the Wolfsburg path to the Champions League, the sporting pioneer managed to take almost all of the players in the squad on the journey and keep them happy. His tactical guidelines were sometimes too stiff for the hard core of the team. The basic sorting of the defensive was also criticized within the team.
Glasner was smart enough to respond in time and correct himself. Apart from the intermittent differences of opinion about the transfer policy of the club: What Glasner and the annoyed managing director Jörg Schmadtke have achieved together are calm and cautious steps. Shrill tones and big headlines could be casually dribbled around. Perhaps that was the subtle difference in the 2020/21 season to other top division clubs that got distracted on the season's home stretch.
The question of whether Glasner is more of a pedant, a lover of detail or a tactical expert can be argued for a long time. The feedback from the Wolfsburg team after two years together is that this trainer ensures transparency, communicates a lot and attaches great importance to supposedly small things. At the end of a season under the 46-year-old Salzburg Glasner, there will be only a few, from the goalkeeper to the upcoming talent, who have not understood what role is intended for them and what contribution is expected of them.
The transition from controlled possession of the ball to the creative build-up of the game was perhaps a shortcoming that could not be remedied in Wolfsburg recently. But Glasner has definitely managed to subdivide the total work of art football into individual aspects and to distribute the corresponding tasks in a targeted manner. They were accepted and solved better than they have been in Wolfsburg for a long time.
The fellow human being and colleague Glasner is not one whose kind automatically brings sympathy and reach to a modern football company like Eintracht Frankfurt.
The new SGE man on the sidelines tends to shine in silence, deal with media issues professionally, and may only serve the boulevard to a limited extent.
Up until his last day at work, Glasner was pestered with questions about his future, the quarrel with Schmadtke and a possible exit clause.
To meet this with stoic calm and a large portion of objectivity was a mature achievement.
Both were rewarded with their entry into the Champions League, whose special flavor Glasner, of all people, cannot enjoy for the time being.