The ranks close again.

Slowly but surely, the national team of Eintracht are returning to Frankfurt.

For the past ten days they have been traveling all over the world to compete with the selection teams of their home countries in the qualification for the upcoming World Cup in Qatar.

Marc Heinrich

Sports editor.

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Aymen Barkok was one of the first to contact Oliver Glasner, safe and sound, to signal that he had survived an extraordinary ordeal well.

The 23-year-old had set out with Morocco for Guinea, West Africa, when reports spread that the military were about to take power in the country.

Barkok and his followers immediately withdrew in order not to be drawn into unforeseeable conflicts in the unstable political situation.

The midfielder has been back in Frankfurt since Wednesday, where he was born and raised and learned to play football at SG Praunheim - but regardless of that, he decided on the country his parents come from when it came to international football beyond his club career To play football.

Barkok can use the remaining time until Eintracht's second home game this season to collect points from Oliver Glasner.

This Sunday (3.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and Sky) it’s against VfB Stuttgart.

Barkok, who often shows his talent in training, is one of the actors who expected the new coach to become increasingly important when the new coach started working.

With Adi Hütter he had slipped into the second member in the spring (due to many faulty appearances).

Big pressure before the home game

And indeed, during the preparation and at the beginning of the round, his successor increasingly relied on the slag, whose strengths lie on the offensive, but which still shows little willingness to work backwards. In Bielefeld, when it came to defending the 1-0 lead, Glasner again relied on Barkok as a substitute in the closing stages. He brought it for Daichi Kamada in the 73rd minute and at that moment decided against Stefan Ilsanker or Makoto Hasebe, who are known to be more righteous in defense matters.

The Austrian coach later justified the exchange with his fundamental conviction that he was thinking ahead and never wanted to secure a lead with defensive changes. He copied this maxim - "full speed ahead!" - from old master Ernst Happel. On the third match day of the still young 2021/2022 season, it did not lead to the goal. Shortly before the final whistle, the Frankfurters, who did not bring any order into the hustle and bustle in midfield, even with Barkok, had to accept the equalizer.

The result left a lot of frustration among the Frankfurters. But Glasner did not have many opportunities to deal with it in the days that followed: a large part of his workforce was traveling as a travel company and was not available to him. The time until the duel with VfB is pressing, and anything but a victory would be another disappointment for the Hessians. Because after the defeat at the start in Dortmund (2: 5) and the goalless draw against Augsburg in the addition of three all in all little edifying performances, they only get two points, which they group in 14th place in the table.

Accordingly, there is great pressure to do better against Stuttgart, who are right in front of them (three points, one win, two defeats). The risk of slipping in early and losing sight of the terrain that the top teams are actually striving for is to be minimized. Especially since the next test is not going to be any easier: On September 19, Eintracht has to run against the current front runner, VfL Wolfsburg, where Glasner was responsible until May.

In order to prepare for this challenge, he has just as little scope for creativity. Because next Thursday there will also be an ambitious start in the Europa League with the duel against Fenerbahçe Istanbul (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Europa League and on TVNOW). If this debut, announced by the club as a feast day, is to be contested with fresh impetus and in the belief in a respectable success, it is all the more imperative for Barkok and his colleagues to cope with the (mandatory) task against Stuttgart with a constructive result.