Two weeks before Christmas, a great wish of unity came true.
The Frankfurters, who have experienced the first half of the season so far, in which much in the Bundesliga business did not work as hoped, managed to deliver an all in all sovereign performance under international conditions: At Fenerbahçe Istanbul, the team of coach Oliver Glasner came to the end of the preliminary round in the Europa League to a 1-1.
Marc Heinrich
Sports editor.
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With the draw, after three wins and two draws, the Hessians, whose progress was already certain, claimed first place in the table in Group D. Thanks to the point win, the Glasner ensemble achieved a performance in which some worth seeing, especially until the break whistle Attempts were made, Eintracht qualified directly for the round of 16 in UEFA's second most important team competition.
Both the fact that they are spared the detour via the play-offs and the pleasant side effect that thanks to the result a total of around 1.25 million euros in prizes made for happy faces in the ranks on Thursday evening the winners, who this time only followed the action with a smaller delegation on site; Among other things, Peter Fischer, the club president, who had repeatedly criticized the policy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the past, stayed in Frankfurt.
Eintracht also had to do without fans, who could have loudly supported them, by order of the security authorities on the Bosporus.
With reference to the Corona situation, tickets were not officially allowed to be sold to fans of the visiting team.
“We are very happy,” said sports director Markus Krösche, commenting on the performance.
He particularly praised the performance right from the start: “That was very good from the guys.
Compliments to the team. "Right winger Timothy Chandler also said in a good mood afterwards:" We went through the group unbeaten and can now build on today's first half. "
Suspense until the end
The manageable crowd of visitors, only 15,000 had turned up, got to see a soccer duel in which Eintracht entered with an almost unchanged line-up. Only Jens Petter Hauge slipped into the starting line-up. The Norwegian was preferred to Goncalo Paciencia on the offensive and replaced Jesper Lindström, who had to fail due to muscle problems in his thigh. At Fenerbahçe, Mesut Özil, who scored the opening goal in the 1-1 first leg in Frankfurt, was consistently on the bench. The Frankfurters started as Glasner had announced. He promised an "active" commitment from his eleven, they would "act themselves" and not wait and see things happen. No sooner said than done - at least in the first 45 minutes.
Rafael Borré had a first opportunity after 180 seconds, but his shot was too unplaced to get Berke Özer into trouble between the posts of the "canaries". Daichi Kamada's attempt also lacked force and precision to shoot the ball into the net (10th minute), while Kristijan Jakic's advance was stopped at the last moment - Turkish defender Nazim Sangaré struck the bullet-ready Croat in between (23rd). Her possession rate, which was sixty percent in the first half, also reflected the superiority of Eintracht, which Jakic let another opportunity slip by (26th) before she struck.
The fact that the defensive midfield organizer was able to intervene so often in the front was due to the fact that Fenerbahçe brought next to nothing to create danger in the last third in front of Kevin Trapp. A combination of Kamada, Filip Kostic and Djibril Sow resulted in the deserved 1-0 for the Frankfurters at the time - the Swiss withdrew from a short distance, after his colleagues had cleverly staged him, untenable in the lower right corner (29 .). A failed defense by Makoto Hasebe surprisingly played into the cards for the opponent. The Japanese hit the ball, which landed at Mergim Berisha: The German U-21 striker overcame Trapp from a few meters (42nd).
Because he noticed how the balance of power threatened to shift in favor of Fenerbahçes in the second section and he wanted to provide fresh momentum in the attack again, Glasner brought Paciencia after an hour for the hitherto not very determined Borré. The Portuguese slipped into the top as a run-friendly play-off point, but did not come to the end in such a way that he could have demonstrated his goal-gettingter qualities.
So it remained exciting until the end, with Eintracht reacted with relief to the outcome: the hands of many of their protagonists united after the final signal in tentative cheering gestures in front of the Istanbul night sky.
The draw at the end of February will show how things will continue for the Frankfurt team in the European Cup on March 10th.
In any case, more prestigious clashes are imminent: Barcelona, Seville or Porto are possible next opponents.