The continuation of the European Cup celebrations in the coming season is becoming increasingly unlikely for Eintracht Frankfurt after the 1: 2 (0: 1) against SC Freiburg. Three days after the impressive performance in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals against FC Barcelona (1-1), the disillusionment in everyday football in Breisgau returned on Sunday in front of 47,000 spectators. The 1-0 through Vincenzo Grifo (27th) was equalized by Filip Kostic (54th). “Joker” Nils Peteren (69′) scored the winning goal for the guests once again, seven minutes after coming on as a substitute.
After their tenth defeat of the season, the Hessian Bundesliga team is now nine points behind Freiburg, who are fifth and tied with fourth-placed RB Leipzig. After the strenuous home game against the Spanish club, Eintracht lacked the energy to rise up again after being behind again, and the goal from shortly before substitute Daichi Kamada was taken back to make it 2-2 (86th) after viewing the video images. On Thursday (9 p.m.) coach Oliver Glasner’s team will play the second leg against four-time Champions League winners Barcelona at the Camp Nou.
Freiburg, meanwhile, took a big step in the fight for an international ticket with the success on the Main – despite the fuss about FC Bayern Munich’s mistake in the substitution in the 4-1 win in the game last weekend. The DFB sports court had rejected the objection from Breisgau on Friday.
The success not only gave the team of coach Christian Streich a good position in the fight for a place in the European Cup, but also tailwind for the cup semifinals on April 19th at Hamburger SV. Freiburg will also host VfL Bochum next Saturday.
Environmental protest in Frankfurt causes an interruption
It wasn’t the 22 players that caused the first excitement of the game, but two environmental activists. They ran onto the pitch in the second minute and tied themselves to the two Eintracht posts. The men wore T-shirts that read: “Last Generation – Stop the fossil madness”. After three minutes, stewards were able to remove them from the post and the game continued.
A protest interrupts the game between Eintracht and Freiburg.
(Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)
In terms of sport, it wasn’t that exciting. The Frankfurters, who had previously remained goalless in five home games, had a lot of trouble creating or taking chances against the very defensive and clever Freiburgers. In the eleventh minute, Jens Petter Hauge took a shot from the edge of the penalty area, but only shot to the side netting on the right. Six minutes later, a good combination from Filip Kostic via Jesper Lindström to Hauge was not crowned with success: the Norwegian didn’t hit the ball properly.
The guests used their only chance more consistently in the 27th minute with a successful counterattack, in which Roland Sallai left three Eintracht pros on the right and passed to Grifo, who shot in to make it 1-0.
Even after the restart, playful highlights were initially scarce. Only after Kostic scored the equalizer did the game become livelier, faster and more exciting. Hauge served the Serbs with a through ball, which made it 1-1 with a flat left past SC keeper Mark Flekken. Petersen headed in after a free kick from Christian Günter – it was his 33rd joker goal. Ajdin Hrustic hit the inside post for Frankfurt in the 84th minute, Flekken would have had no chance.