New season, different perception.
Markus Krösche, the sports director of the Europa League winner Eintracht Frankfurt, is well aware that his club and its sporting protagonists are seen differently and rated much higher after the triumph through the second most important European football competition than at the beginning of the previous Bundesliga season. game time.
It ended for the Hessians in eleventh place in the league after the last eight games without a win, just as disappointing as the DFB Cup competition, in which Eintracht failed in the first round at SV Waldhof Mannheim.
Frankfurt successes
It goes without saying that the results in the Bundesliga and cup competition were almost irrelevant in the end, given the glamor and glory appearances in the Europa League, in which the Frankfurters were neither beaten by Betis Sevilla, nor by the great FC Barcelona, nor by West Ham United and in the The finals were also unstoppable by the Glasgow Rangers on the way to the first German title in 25 years in the Europa League, which previously operated as the Uefa Cup.
This has consequences that Krösche and his Eintracht are happy to accept from now on.
"The opponents," says the 41-year-old from Lower Saxony, "will adapt to the Europa League winners." Victories against coach Oliver Glasner's team are becoming a matter of domestic prestige.
Frankfurt's successes in the Champions League, for which the team qualified on May 18th by winning the final in Seville, will be even more difficult for the players than the successes in the Europa League, which are admired throughout Europe.
"Champions League", emphasizes Krösche, "is something else again.
Mistakes are punished much more than in the Europa League.
We prepare the players for that.”
The sports director of the grassroots-oriented big club with more than 110,000 members sees his team better equipped than in the previous season to be able to overturn even deep-seated opponents.
In view of the clearly defensive teams, Glasner's first squad repeatedly had problems asserting their own game in the past season.
Krösche now sees promising personnel constellations that will give the Frankfurters new opportunities to better assert their offensive football.
idol revives
"The system allows us to play with two strikers in order to create more situations in the box," said Krösche on Sunday morning at a press breakfast in Windischgarsten, the Upper Austrian training camp quarters for the coming days.
He also liked to refer to new attackers Lucas Alario and Randal Kolo Muani.
The Argentinian centre-forward, who has been tried and tested at Bayer 04 Leverkusen for years, is a classic executor, while the 23-year-old French attacker, who came from FC Nantes, impresses with his speed, deep runs and racy in one-on-one situations.
In addition, Mario Götze, who returned to the Bundesliga from PSV Eindhoven and was the celebrated German goalscorer in the 1-0 final victory over Argentina at the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, stimulates Eintracht’s offensive possibilities through his art, even under pressure when making the last or penultimate pass to be able to play.
"Through his presence, he gives the others some breathing room," predicts Krösche after Götze celebrated his Eintracht premiere with some promising actions in the 0-0 draw on Saturday in the test at Linz's ASK.
Krösche considers it conceivable that Eintracht could also be successful with a double ten from Götze and the Japanese Daichi Kamada.
On the other hand, Kamada, Evan Ndicka and Filip Kostic, an icon of the Frankfurt attacking game, are still considered candidates for sale as their contracts expire in mid-2023.
Krösche, who also has in mind the economic side of Frankfurt, who was badly hit by the Corona crisis, emphasized to the television channel Sky: “Our primary goal is to be successful in sport.
Still, it's not our goal to let players go on a free transfer.” Kostic, Kamada and Ndicka were among the essential pillars on the road to Europa League triumph.
functioning collective
They're still here and their presence means that the current squad with nine new players is rated higher than any Frankfurt squad for a long time.
The unexpectedly spectacular success in the Europa League was above all thanks to the team spirit, said Krösche on Sunday, and also had to do "very much" with solidary professionals who did not play or only rarely played.
"That's why it's important for me that we always have a group that works." Coach Oliver Glasner, who demonstrated his navigation skills as the helmsman of the Frankfurt triumph in the past season with sufficient impressiveness, also stands for that.
That's how it should be again.
"It's important to me," emphasized Krösche, who spread a great deal of optimism, "that we have a squad that increases the likelihood of us being successful in sport and always a group that works well together." That should also be the case in the new, even more demanding seasons may be possible.