OfIngo Durstewitz
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Eintracht striker Randal Kolo Muani stirs up the Bundesliga and storms at the last minute with France to the World Cup in Qatar.
Frankfurt – Actually, the big dream had already burst, bang, like a soap bubble. Qatar? Ticked off! On Monday, the French soccer player Randal Kolo Muani climbed onto the plane to Tokyo with his Frankfurt playmates, Eintracht promotional tour in the Far East instead of a global tournament in the Persian Gulf. Even the last ticket for the trip to the Arabian Peninsula for the World Cup did not go to the Frankfurt high-flyer, but to Marcus Thuram from Gladbach, who national coach Didier Deschamps nominated as the 26th man. Too bad for Kolo Muani, the high-flyer from the German premium class.
But then fate struck and was not kind to the Leipzig magician Christopher Nkunku, who injured his knee on Tuesday during training for the Equipe Tricolore and will miss the World Cup. Definitive. A heavy blow for the 24-year-old, who has had a furious season and leads the top scorer list with twelve goals. But as is so often the case in life: One person’s sorrow is another’s joy.
Eintracht certificate
Europa League triumphantChampions League round of 16, fourth in the Bundesliga with more points after 15 match days than in almost three decades – Eintracht Frankfurt looks back on an extraordinary, even historical year, the best and most beautiful for an eternity. Reason enough to pay tribute to the team that earned an interim report with a grade of one.
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Randal Kolo Muani goes to the World Cup: great praise from Eintracht Frankfurt
Another Bundesliga player will now represent the colors of the Grande Nation for the Leipzig player, national coach Deschamps has just called up Eintracht striker Kolo Muani, who will fulfill his World Cup dream at the very last minute. On Wednesday he was no longer there when Eintracht in Saitama played against the Urawa Red Diamonds in a friendly manner and lost 4-2 with a C-Elf. Kolo Muani went straight from Japan to the defending champion’s training camp. Late luck for the shooting star from Frankfurt. The 23-year-old, who only made his debut in the Equipe Tricolore two months ago, had already resigned himself to not being considered. “This won’t blow my mind. I’m not sad,” he said a few days ago. Now he can hardly believe his luck.
The appointment at the last second is definitely “deserved”, as sports director Markus Krösche also thinks. “The tournament can help him take the next step in his development.” He has already taken the German elite class by storm, the arrival from Nantes rocks the Bundesliga. He has scored five goals and provided eleven assists – that puts him at the top, not only nationally but also internationally. Even Lionel Messi “only” has ten assists at Paris St. Germain.
Randal Kolo Muani at Eintracht Frankfurt: The SBU “weapon”
And Kolo Muani scores important goals, twice winning in the Champions League, once against Olympique Marseille to make it 2-1 and then in the “final” in Lisbon. This goal in all its brute force is representative of the attacker’s style: inimitably he left Goncalo Inacio standing like a schoolboy and threw the ball into the far corner to make it 2-1. “An absolute willpower,” praised captain Sebastian Rode. “We now have a weapon,” stated board spokesman Axel Hellmann aptly. The 51-year-old even believes that Eintracht can really make money with the arrow from Bondy. “That could be an 80 million man,” says Hellmann. But only if he gets tougher in front of the goal.
Because despite his outstanding performance in the first half of the year, the 1.87-meter edge with Congolese roots still has room for improvement, especially when it comes to converting chances. He’s often too hectic there or, like now in Mainz, technically too unclean. He also failed several top-class players in the unfortunate home defeat against Borussia Dortmund. “He still hasn’t calmed down. That’s clearly on the agenda,” says coach Oliver Glasner, who generally doesn’t see the player at the end of his development. “He’s not where he can be yet. He’ll get even better.”
With his goal-oriented style of play, Kolo Muani brings back memories of the legendary Tony Yeboah, not in terms of movement, but in his assertiveness. The striker, market value 30 million, is unstoppable once he gets going. His sometimes unconventional style of play, which sometimes lets him bang his head through the wall or into three opponents, is his greatest strength, even if he could use a little more structure from time to time. But this unpredictable, unpredictable makes Kolo Muani one of the hottest numbers in all of Europe. Now he can even show it in the desert. (Ingo Durstewitz)