Rafael Borré, who is 1.74 meters tall, would probably not have felt much joy at that moment.

But a successful shot on goal from him in the home game against Arminia Bielefeld would at least have given the Eintracht striker and his teammates the feeling that not everything was bad for the Europa League participants on Friday evening.

Only the Colombia international couldn't manage the final act when the score was 0:2: free-standing, he failed from close range at the strong Bielefeld goalkeeper Stefan Ortega in injury time.

George Daniels

Editor in the sports department

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In a negative way, the missed shot rounded off the completely unsuccessful late shift in Frankfurt, which Sebastian Rode classified as a "used evening".

“The 92nd minute was significant when not even Rafa's ball went in.

We got off to a bitter start in the second half of the season,” said the captain, who was on the pitch for 61 minutes this time, summarizing the failed gallop in Frankfurt. 

Three games have been played in 2022, and the ambitious Eintracht is still without a win and beaten by just one point.

With a sense of achievement, the Hessians could have set an example at the beginning of the 20th matchday and advanced to an international starting place.

Instead, they added an unsatisfactory chapter to their fickleness this season.

“Now we have a little pressure”

Rode spoke of a "very meager point yield".

The consequences of which midfielder Djibril Sow summed up: “Now we have a little pressure,” recognized the Swiss international correctly.

However, coach Oliver Glasner is not worried, after all, the Hessians “have already gone through several difficult situations.

I don't get worried because I've seen the guys try everything.

Now we have two weeks to roll up our sleeves, work hard and get back on the road to success," said the Austrian matter-of-factly.

In a relaxed mood, the processing of the sixth defeat of the season will not take place.

Rode noticed "a bad feeling" in himself and his family, with which everyone should now go into the two-week break.

"In the best case scenario we would have played 0-0 today. So we lost a point" - that was Glasner's final statement after the second home defeat in a row. Until the encounter against the strengthened relegation candidate Bielefeld, who has been unbeaten for five games, the Frankfurt team had scored twelve goals in five games. They could have enriched this statistic on Friday evening as well. But first and foremost Borré, who didn't show any strength after 35 minutes, and the Dane Jesper Lindström, who couldn't crown his solo effort (16th minute) on the Arminia goal, missed the best scoring opportunities. And there was more danger from defender Evan Ndicka's headers.

"Sometimes the ball just missed, then the goalkeeper saved well," summed up Glasner. "Perhaps we've been thinking a little too much about the poor conversion of chances lately and it's stuck in people's minds a bit." The coach classified the bitter setback in the "very disappointing defeat" category. In which the weak defensive behavior of Eintracht also had a part. The Bielefeld goals by Patrick Wimmer to 0:1 (5th) and Alessandro Schöpf to 0:2 (28th) were described by chief strategist Makoto Hasebe, who came on as a substitute at the beginning of the second half, as “two very easy goals conceded”.

Glasner complained that “we often talked about the unnecessary goals conceded”. "Now it's time for us to improve as well," he warned of starting a learning process among the staff. "Too often we're not energetic enough, let the opponent turn it up. Balls from the outside also often result in goals being conceded,” he said. Defense boss Martin Hinteregger delivered a weak first half, who was then mainly substituted due to injury.

Starting with the away game against VfB Stuttgart on February 5, Markus Krösche is now calling for a “much more consistent” approach from the team and from everyone on the pitch.

"I'm clearly upset because the defeat was simply unnecessary.

Because we weren't consistent in defending from the start, we conceded goals that were too easy and didn't take our chances," said the sporting director.

"Today we didn't perform well." In terms of the number of points and for Eintracht's demands, that was "not enough", emphasized Krösche.

"We always have to be at 100 percent to win games." At the moment, Eintracht is very frustrated and disillusioned.