Successful strikers – Eintracht Frankfurt – Bayer 04 Leverkusen 3:0

The new herd of buffalo?

The sporting opponent this time in the naturally sold out Waldstadion came from Leverkusen. The Werkself Bayer 04 played in the last round at home a draw against Leipzig. So you could think that they wanted to show on the Main that they were a top team. And even to be able to win away against stronger teams. And the Eagles? Except for the fact that the team managed to qualify for the EL group matches, it has not really been able to convince so far. This may also be due to the fact that the successful strikers of last season all left the team together. They wanted to have an international career with top teams, to be in the Champions League before anything else.

So for the Eintracht new players had to be found and integrated into the Hessen team. A team restructuring always harbours hardly calculable risks. Integration sometimes requires more patience and therefore more time than assumed during planning. But on the eighth matchday against “pharmacists” the knot seems to have broken.

To the game

Not everyone has taken a seat in the stadium yet, and the Hessians were already leading 1:0 in the fourth minute. Pacience showed real goal scorer qualities. Later, the former Eintracht idol Lukas Hradecky could not have grabbed the ball just once behind him to get it out of the net. Because only 13 minutes later, Pacience very certainly sank a hand penalty. Thus the slapdash kickers already led in the 17th minute, fully deserved, with 2:0. Bayer pushes and pushes, but it did not fight successfully, couldn’t score. Either on his own inability or on the opponent’s keeper Rönnow. And with a result of 0:2 you have to hurry, otherwise time will run out. And the three points as well …

So, no matter how well Lukas knew Eintracht and the Waldstadion from earlier years, his new playmates could not catch up on this matchday. And with so many wastes the other team usually strikes. Also it happend now. In the 80th minute Dost with real Gerd Müller qualities, he prevailed against three Leverkusener players and Hradecky. After a back and forth he spike the ball somehow into the opponent’s net. So his team from the Main won 3:0. Also in this height fully deserved. And the new goal scorers, the new her of buffalo, seem to mature slowly to a good choice.

Football is a volatile business. In 2017 Lukas was still training with the eagles in the desert. Photo: ©Birtukan Aman Hussien

With this convincing victory Eintracht landed on 8th place in the Bundesliga. Schalke and Leverkusen also have 14 points. Only the very tight goal ratios decide the order at these three places. And next Sunday the Frankfurt team will go to Gladbach for the top match against the Borussia.

For the statisticians

Eintracht Frankfurt – Bayer Leverkusen 3:0 (2:0)
Formation Eintracht Frankfurt

Rönnow – Toure (30th Abraham), Hasebe, Hinteregger – Fernandes – da Costa, Sow (84th Kohr), Rode, Kostic – Paciencia, Dost (85th Gacinovic)

Formation Bayer Leverkusen

Hradecky – Dragovic, S. Bender, Wendell (64. L. Bender)- Baumgartlinger, Demirbay – Weiser (30. Bellarabi), Havertz, Amiri, Volland – Alario (82. Diaby)