Not much was missing, Martin Hinteregger was right.

The Austrian in the service of unity attested that he and his family had an idea close to perfection.

Which was no less than shamelessly exaggerated, but the hint that this entertaining encounter could easily have ended with a victory for unity was true.

At the end of the second half, when Eintracht welcomed Filip Kostic benevolently into their group of emergency services and he promptly contributed as a goal scorer, some tight decisions were later made in the minutes of the game, in which the Frankfurters had the necessary bit of luck was missing.

Marc Heinrich

Sports editor.

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First, shortly after Kostic had met to lead Eintracht (79th), the Stuttgart had to cope with the exclusion of Waldemar Anton (82nd). In the running duel with the threatening Rafael Borré, the defender didn't know what to do but kick the Colombian in the legs. The strict sanction followed for the culprit in the form of the red card. But Borré's assumption that there would have to be a penalty kick for an unfair entry, for which he already positioned himself with the ball in hand, was thwarted by the referee: The foul occurred a few centimeters from the edge of the penalty area; and instead of a penalty, which would have brought a better chance of increasing to 2-0, the Frankfurt team only received a free kick from 17 meters away from the goal. He didn't bring in anything.

It was similarly close when Borré came to the conclusion from a short distance on the basis of Kostic.

His shot flew from the crossbar first onto the line, and from there against the back of the VfB goalkeeper.

But just over is also wrong.

That also applied to a Hinteregger header on the crossbar.

Before retreating under the cooling shower, the Carinthian did not save with self-praise and also irritated with a peculiar interpretation of the facts.

"The drop that was too much for the barrel"

The temporary captain, who represents the injured Sebastian Rode, described the ninety minutes of football as a successful sample of fresh Frankfurt football art. They had implemented everything perfectly, as they had set out to do it. "The coach gave us an excellent attitude," he said. That was "very, very good". In addition, Kostic showed "how important he is to us".

What no one seriously wanted to deny, especially since the statistics showed 24 ball contacts with which the 28-year-old revived the offensive, which had been faltering until then, in the 59th minute after being substituted on. "His presence brings a lot," said Hinteregger, that was also true. Otherwise, of course, he confused himself with the attempt to support the Serb with arguments and to gloss over his behavior afterwards. At the end of August Kostic's attempt to move to Lazio Rome through a strike in Frankfurt had failed. Oliver Glasner became clear in this context: "That was just before the end of the drop transfer time, which was too much for the Eintracht Frankfurt barrel."

But the two clubs could not come to an agreement financially, as sporting director Markus Krösche confirmed.

Hinteregger now spoke of "many half-truths" that had circulated and that had influenced Kostic's public image.

He accused the media of having written "bullshit".

Hinteregger blamed "the press" for the fact that Kostic's reputation among the fans had suffered.

“That with Filip Kostic was ticked off for a long time, that was exaggerated,” said the central defender, who in summer 2019 turned himself into a stubborn professional in Augsburg, in order to get his approval for the desired departure to Frankfurt.

The automatisms are missing

Hinteregger also took the liberty of questioning the club's approach on Sunday. The club, he said in front of the cameras, without specifying names, whom he explicitly criticized in the leadership, had "not reacted optimally". For the time being, Krösche did not go into detail about such accompanying noises around the fifth winless match this season. According to information from this newspaper, the sporting management will make it clear to Hinteregger in a timely conversation that his approach was alienated by the top management of the club.

“We played a good game and did a lot right. In the last third we are still a little too unclean. We have to become clearer and more determined here, ”said Krösche, summarizing his impressions from the fourth matchday. “You can see that the automatisms are still missing. It's annoying that we can't get a game like this over the stage, so we have to defend better in this situation. ”So VfB had a bright moment - which was preceded by an inadequate header defense by Hinteregger - from Omar Marmoush (88th) to take a point. “We deserved the win and invested a lot. But we are fighters, that doesn't knock us out, ”said Glasner.

This Thursday the Europa League continues at home with the overture against Fenerbahce Istanbul, three days later the trip to Glasner's former employer in Wolfsburg, who greets the Bundesliga competition from the top of the table. “We are going through a difficult phase. What can go wrong will go wrong, but the knot will burst. This situation welds us together even more, ”was Glasner's prognosis, from which the hope of an end to all debates that disrupt concentration on the essentials was echoed. Hinteregger may also have related that to himself. Because he has recently made a name for himself with strong words. Less because of exquisite services.