Bundesliga 2026/27 Tactical Previews | Eintracht Frankfurt

Bundesliga 2026/27 Tactical Previews | Eintracht Frankfurt Our Get German Football News Bundesliga 2026/27 tactical previews series continues with a look at Eintracht Frankfurt. Before proceeding any further, the author undoubtedly owes SGE supporters several apologies. Last summer, in this very space , he picked the SGE to challenge Bayern München for the Bundesliga title. This was based on what seemed, at the time, like decent evidence. Frankfurt responded to this vote of confidence by conceding goals with the enthusiasm of a charitable organization. Everything proceeded to fall apart. Unlike Dino Toppmöller, the author doesn’t wish to make excuses. By the winter break, the defensive problems had already swallowed much of the optimism . Dino Toppmöller’s increasingly unstable side eventually gave way to the brief Albert Riera experiment. The author spent rather a lot of time wondering aloud whether appointing a coach with virtually no German, no Bundesliga experience and precious little familiarity with the country’s football culture represented an especially ambitious communications experiment. When it didn’t work, the author took an unwarranted victory lap when writing on Adi Hütter’s reinstatement. Perhaps Hütter’s botching of the Handkäse ritual should have tipped him off that things may not run so smoothly. Five pre-season victories produced 18 goals and enough optimism to begin wondering whether Frankfurt had rediscovered themselves rather quickly. Then came Brentford. Seven goals. None in the correct direction. Painful football enough to make one’s stomach attempting to metabolize Handkäse seem like an appealing alternative. The author spent much of last season trying to figure out what happened to Eintracht Frankfurt. He now promises to get to the bottom of what the hell happened at Brentford. Eintracht Frankfurt The personnel picture explains why Hütter’s early work has looked simultaneously so promising and so fragile. Frankfurt have not simply changed coaches; they have altered important pieces in virtually every line, lost several established starters, added players for very specific tactical purposes and still appear likely to keep working the market. That matters when judging both the encouraging first five friendlies and the Brentford collapse. Before attempting to decide whether Hütter has actually fixed anything, the author should probably establish exactly who is being asked to execute the new plan in the first place. Major personnel shifts, Frankfurt Estimated Summer Transfer Balance = +€49.75m One can hardly accuse Frankfurt of sitting on their hands this summer. The problem is that a great deal of the movement has taken place in areas Hütter now needs to function almost perfectly. The most painful departure was obviously Nathaniel Brown. Bayern eventually paid around €50m for the German international. Brown’s exit forms only part of a fairly remarkable defensive clear-out. Aurèle Amenda moved to Coventry City for around €18m and Rasmus Kristensen returned to Denmark with Midtjylland. Frankfurt have therefore lost both established full-backs from last season, as well as more options for central defense. Keita Kosugi remains too raw to be entrusted with an immediate Bundesliga starting job, while Arthur Theate is still expected to leave. Young Brazilian Otávio arrived from Estrela Amadora as an athletic, left-footed developmental project, but his pre-season left much to be desired. Frankfurt already wanted another experienced defender. Nnamdi Collins’ persistent and painful back inflammation has now made the problem considerably more urgent. Collins could miss several more weeks and his absence leaves Hütter short of both central-defensive quality and another possible right-back solution. Robin Koch recovered from the mild concussion suffered at Brentford in time for the Pokal opener, but even the captain forms part of the larger structural dilemma. Koch has historically looked strongest as the central defender in a back three, where his lack of outright recovery pace is better protected. The more convincing work has taken place in midfield. Frankfurt finally landed long-standing target Raphael Onyedika from Club Brugge and invested heavily in Noël Aséko from Bayern. Roughly €22m spent on the pair constitutes a fairly explicit admission that the old central structure required rebuilding. Onyedika supplies the natural No. 6 profile Frankfurt have lacked for some time, while Aséko brings the athleticism and vertical running suited to Hütter’s high-intensity midfield. Naturally, because football possesses a sense of humor, Onyedika spent his first appearances committing some highly dangerous possession errors while Aséko spent the entire pre-season nursing knee problems. Then there is the goalkeeper position , which Frankfurt somehow managed to turn into a late-summer sequel. Last August, Michael Zetterer arrived from Bremen as an experienced bridge after Kevin Trapp’s sudden move to Paris FC and while Kauã Santos recovered from his serious knee injury. The bridge never quite led where intended. Santos returned without definitively establishing himself, Zetterer reclaimed the position under Dino Toppmöller and the hierarchy remained unsettled through the remainder of the season. One year later, the 0-7 Brentford debacle has prompted Frankfurt to look again. The attacking turnover is somewhat less dramatic, and—given everything occurring behind it—considerably less urgent. Eintracht merely lost two strikers – Arnaud Kalimuendo and Michy Batshuayi – whose production numbers can be replaced. Younes Ebnoutalib produced goals during preparation and Hütter clearly rates him. Malik Pimpong, meanwhile, looks like an especially intriguing long-term investment after arriving from Midtjylland’s youth setup. A late Kalimuendo return on loan is reportedly conceivable, but this is now a position at which the club can afford to wait. Burkardt is fixed. The defense is on fire. This front office has earned enormous credit over the years for identifying talent, developing it and selling it for figures that occasionally border on the obscene. The author has handed out plenty of that credit himself. This time, however, merely winning the transfer market spreadsheet will not suffice. Frankfurt finished eighth last season, burned through two coaches, conceded at an astonishing rate and now ask Hütter to implement an aggressive system while several of its most important defensive positions remain unsettled. The money is there. The developmental reputation is there. The expensive departures have already happened. Krösche, Hardung and company just need to deliver the finished product this time. They probably can. Notes from pre-season, Frankfurt For most of the summer, Adi Hütter’s return to Eintracht Frankfurt appeared to be going almost suspiciously well. The author takes full responsibility for his role in misleading any readers. The Austrian immediately restored many of the principles associated with his first spell in charge: intensity, aggressive pressing and a desire to move the ball forward rather than circulate it harmlessly. Hütter settled quickly on a 4-2-2-2 in which the nominal wide attacking midfielders moved inside and the full-backs supplied width. Frankfurt wanted to compress the pitch, hunt the ball high and attack before opponents could recover their shape. Against FC Gießen, admittedly fifth-tier opposition, the first sketches looked excellent. Frankfurt pressed high, rotated freely in attack and pushed their full-backs forward throughout a 7-1 win. Younes Ebnoutalib opened the scoring, Jonathan Burkardt struck twice – including an outrageous Rabona finish – and summer signing Malik Pimpong added a second-half brace. The more significant evidence arrived against Trabzonspor. Less than two weeks into the new regime, Hütter’s fingerprints were already obvious. Frankfurt’s 4-2-2-2 suffocated the Turkish side early, with Robin Koch and Nnamdi Collins stepping extraordinarily high from central defense to keep the pressure locked inside the opposition half. Trabzonspor, third in the Süper Lig the previous season, were totally overwhelmed. Hugo Larsson finished a Ritsu Dōan move for the opener before Can Uzun won the penalty converted by Burkardt. Frankfurt eventually won 3-0 and, more importantly, demonstrated how devastating Hütter’s high-risk structure could look when the first press worked. There were reasons for enthusiasm. Burkardt was scoring relentlessly. Uzun looked imaginative between the lines. Collins excelled cleaning up behind the press. The team appeared livelier and considerably more vertical. The first wobble arrived after the training camp. Frankfurt looked heavy-legged in a 1-0 win at Waldhof Mannheim. The pressing lacked its previous ferocity and the 4-2-2-2 occasionally became too narrow as Dōan and Uzun moved inside without receiving enough overlapping support. Waldhof were on equal terms for significant stretches of the opening half. Uzun nevertheless remained one of Frankfurt’s most creative players with the ball, repeatedly initiating attacks and finding useful positions. His problem lay elsewhere. Questions were already being raised about his defensive work from the left half-space, where any reluctance to track runners placed additional pressure on the full-back behind him. Burkardt eventually settled matters. Jeremiaha Maluze clipped a fine ball behind the defensive line, Elias Baum attacked the space and squared for Frankfurt’s striker to score yet again. Baum was one of the brighter performers going forward, while both Kauã Santos and Michael Zetterer subsequently contributed stellar saves to preserve the clean sheet. The results continued to flatter the larger picture. Premier League newcomers Hull City were beaten 2-0 over 120 minutes. Frankfurt controlled much of the match and Burkardt scored for the fourth consecutive friendly, brilliantly controlling a huge ball launched by Santos before finishing. Love Arrhov added the second from a Farès Chaïbi pass. Santos was outstanding, but elsewhere new problems were beginning to emerge. Raphael Onyedika made his debut as the long-awaited holding midfielder and promptly surrendered possession in a position from which Hull should have scored. Onyedika repeated the mistake four days later. Against Regionalliga neighbors FSV Frankfurt, the hosts were overwhelmed during an excellent opening half. Uzun created Otávio’s headed debut goal from a free kick and helped manufacture Ebnoutalib’s second before Burkardt headed in the third. Pimpong and Dōan completed a comfortable 5-1 win after the break. Yet two alarming moments sat inside another convincing scoreline. Otávio committed a dreadful last-man turnover on his Frankfurt debut and escaped punishment. Onyedika then misplaced another dangerous pass to gift the FSV a clear opportunity. Hütter was also still experimenting at right-back. Ansgar Knauff, naturally an attacking player but familiar with wing-back work from earlier in his Frankfurt career, received repeated auditions in the back four. The logic was obvious. With no traditional wingers in the 4-2-2-2, Hütter requires his full-backs to attack vast spaces, something Knauff possesses the pace to do. Whether the same arrangement could survive against Bundesliga-level attackers was another matter. Still, the numbers looked magnificent. Five friendlies. Five victories. Eighteen goals. Three consecutive clean sheets in the middle of the run. Then Frankfurt went to Brentford. The match Germans refer to as the “Generalprobe” obliterated everything. Former Freiburg striker Kevin Schade scored after two minutes. Twelve minutes in, a relatively harmless effort slipped through Santos’ hands for 2-0. Shortly before halftime, Schade pressed Koch into a turnover inside his own penalty area and supplied Igor Thiago for the third. Koch then departed injured. It somehow became worse. Frankfurt had spent the summer pushing their defensive line aggressively forward in order to support the press. Against Trabzonspor, that compressed the match until the opponent could barely breathe. Brentford simply attacked the space behind it. It was genuinely painful to watch, as painful as listening to one’s stomach attempt to metabolize Handkäse. The Premier League side repeatedly accelerated beyond Frankfurt’s defensive line while the visitors struggled to generate pressure on the ball. After halftime, the distances became enormous. Personnel changes brought no stability. Arthur Theate replaced Otávio, Amaimouni came on for Dōan and later Knauff moved to right-back with Baum switching across to the left. Nothing worked. Brentford scored in the 52nd and 57th minutes. One pass later, Brentford eliminated virtually the entire Frankfurt defense for the sixth. Schade added the seventh shortly afterward. A summer built around five consecutive victories ended with seven unanswered goals in the dress rehearsal. The result should not erase everything that came before it. Hütter’s ideas clearly produced good football during stretches of pre-season. Burkardt looks capable of thriving in the two-striker system, Uzun remains a dangerous creator and several younger players made compelling cases for larger roles. But Brentford exposed the cost of Frankfurt’s aggression when the first pressure fails. The high line suddenly becomes enormous space to defend, the narrow attacking midfielders must provide more defensive work than Uzun has shown thus far, and a back four containing inexperienced or unsettled pieces cannot continually be asked to defend open-field situations. There are personnel problems as well. Onyedika requires time after a shaky introduction. Otávio remains raw. Noel Aseko lost the entire pre-season to knee problems. The second-striker position alongside Burkardt remains unsettled, while neither the goalkeeper situation nor the defensive depth inspires much confidence. Hütter returned to Frankfurt promising greater intensity and faster football. For five games, the change created genuine excitement. The sixth demonstrated just how far away the finished product remains. Winners from camp, Frankfurt Jonathan Burkardt, CF Jonathan Burkardt spent virtually the entire summer scoring goals and looking as though Hütter had designed the 4-2-2-2 specifically with him in mind. He struck twice against Gießen, converted from the spot against Trabzonspor, settled the Mannheim test, produced an excellent long-ball control and finish against Hull and headed home again against FSV Frankfurt. Six goals across five friendlies before the Brentford disaster qualifies as a fairly persuasive pre-season. Burkardt is having a ball with Hütter football. More important than the numbers is the fit. Burkardt presses, attacks depth, drops intelligently and possesses enough technical quality to connect the two narrow creators behind him with whoever eventually wins the second-striker job. His willingness to initiate pressure also makes him central to the defensive side of Hütter’s attacking structure. Frankfurt have plenty of unresolved questions entering competitive play. The identity of their attacking reference point isn’t one of them. Burkardt didn’t merely win camp. He emerged from it looking like the player around whom Hütter can organize the entire front line. Can Uzun, AM Can Uzun’s work with the ball was excellent throughout preparation. He won the penalty against Trabzonspor, repeatedly initiated Frankfurt’s better attacks against Mannheim and directly created the opening two goals against FSV Frankfurt. Hütter’s narrow left-sided attacking role suits the 20-year-old’s intelligence between the lines almost perfectly. He can receive in crowded areas, turn attacks forward quickly and drift into precisely the pockets Hütter wants his nominal wide players occupying. We nevertheless must address one big deficiency. The problem arrives when possession changes hands. Uzun’s reluctance to track runners consistently leaves the advancing full-back behind him exposed, something that becomes considerably more dangerous when Frankfurt’s first press fails and half the team is already standing somewhere near the opposition penalty area. Brentford offered the ugliest possible demonstration of what those structural gaps can become against better opposition. Still, that’s Hütter’s problem to solve. The challenge now is not finding a place for his talent. It’s constructing enough protection around it. Malik Pimpong, CF Malik Pimpong, Razak Pimpong’s son, is in the German Oberhaus! Germans remain ecstatic about welcoming the spawn of one of the most memorable players from the 2006 German-hosted World Cup. Nobody needs to start engraving his name into the strongest XI. Burkardt remains untouchable and Frankfurt are still open to adding another senior striker if the right late-window opportunity presents itself. Two goals against Gießen and another against FSV Frankfurt certainly helped shorten the distance between “prospect” and “actual option.” Note the author’s “fan-boy” bias here. Love Arrhov, AM/CF The Swedish prospect and his magnificent head of hair may be a ways off as well, but the youngster used the friendlies for precisely what they’re supposed to be used for. Love Arrhov scored against Gießen and, considerably more meaningfully, found the net against Hull City after combining with Farès Chaïbi. Two pre-season goals do not suddenly make an 18-year-old a Bundesliga regular. They do, however, ensure that Hütter and everyone else now know considerably more about him than we did six weeks ago. Perhaps, like his fellow Swede Hugo Larsson, he can also break through sooner than we expected. Losers from camp, Frankfurt Raphael Onyedika, DM Raphael Onyedika arrived as the long-awaited answer to a problem the club had been trying to solve for several transfer windows : a genuine No. 6 capable of protecting space. His first impressions instead produced precisely the kind of moments Frankfurt cannot afford from that position. Against Hull, he surrendered possession in an area from which the Premier League side really should have scored. Four days later against FSV Frankfurt, another misplaced pass handed the opposition a similarly dangerous opportunity. Naturally, all of this doesn’t suddenly make Onyedika a bad signing. It does make his adaptation period considerably more important than Frankfurt would have hoped. The entire logic behind recruiting him was that Hütter’s football requires someone capable of protecting the enormous spaces created by the press, the advancing full-backs and the narrow attacking midfielders. Brentford subsequently demonstrated what happens when that protection disappears altogether. Onyedika was brought in to help prevent exactly that sort of structural collapse. For now, the solution to one of Frankfurt’s most important problems still looks like a player learning how to solve it. Otavio, CB/LB Otavio had a debut goal against FSV Frankfurt that should ordinarily make for a pleasant first entry in the notebook. Unfortunately, the same match also featured a dreadful last-man turnover that should have been punished. It neatly encapsulated the Brazilian’s summer. The tools are obvious and Frankfurt clearly see enough in him to invest in the development project, but nothing during preparation suggested that a raw young defender should immediately be entrusted with cleaning up the defensive problems Hütter inherited. That matters even more now. Collins’ prolonged absence, Theate’s uncertain future and Frankfurt’s failure thus far to add an experienced defender could force Otavio into important competitive minutes before he looks ready for them. The 20-year-old has considerable ground to make up while adapting to the higher level. Hütter asks his centre-backs to defend aggressively forward and recover across enormous spaces once the first pressure has been beaten. Otávio duly begin alongside Koch in the Pokal because Frankfurt temporarily lack alternatives. That is not the same thing as winning the job. Noël Aséko, CM Noël Aséko simply lost the summer. Knee problems prevented the 20-year-old from playing a single pre-season minute despite arriving as one of Frankfurt’s most important midfield additions. That is particularly unfortunate given how much adaptation Hütter’s football demands from central players and how unsettled the structure around them remains. Frankfurt clearly believe Aseko can become a significant part of the midfield and the projected hierarchy still places him prominently alongside Onyedika. The problem is that everyone else spent six weeks learning Hütter’s distances, pressing cues and transition patterns while Aséko watched. Nobody loses camp more literally than the player who never gets to participate in it. Kaua Santos, GK Kaua Santos and Michael Zetterer combined to preserve the clean sheet against Mannheim, while the Brazilian was excellent against Hull and even supplied Burkardt’s goal with one enormous long ball. Then Brentford happened. Twelve minutes into the Generalprobe, a relatively harmless attempt slipped through Santos’ hands for the second goal and immediately revived all the questions Frankfurt had hoped preparation might begin answering. Worse still, the mistake helped reopen a goalkeeper debate Frankfurt now appear serious about ending with somebody else. Noah Atubolu has emerged as the preferred new No. 1, meaning Santos emerged from camp with the shirt still technically his and the club actively exploring how to hand it to another goalkeeper. Not good times! Tactical Pokal scout, Frankfurt There is an obvious limit to what one should learn from an 11-0 victory over Oberliga opposition played on a pitch that displayed obvious American football field markings. The author learned some interesting things after Eintracht completely rendered the match uncompetitive within a couple of minutes, mainly stuff about the local apple orchards and the local Krefeld Ravens football team. The German broadcaster responsible for commentating on the match had to talk about something. Football wasn’t really on offer anymore. Oh well. At least there were other interesting topics on the docket. One cannot spend six weeks studying Hütter’s aggressive structure, watch Brentford tear it into confetti, then declare everything repaired because a fifth-tier side happened to concede ten goals before it was time to head into the tunnel. That would be silly. As the opening paragraph illustrates, the author is all about silliness. There simply isn’t a way to weave it into the tactical discussion, if we’re indeed still having a tactical discussion. Lineup–SGE (DFB Pokal) Nothing from camp was abandoned. Frankfurt again operated from the 4-2-2-2, with Burkardt and Ebnoutalib together up front, Uzun moving into the left half-space, Amaimouni-Echghouyab occupying the corresponding right-sided role and Götze joining Onyedika centrally. Baum and Kosugi were expected to supply the outside width. Most significantly after Brentford, Frankfurt did not retreat into a safer block and spend 90 minutes contemplating the virtues of defensive modesty. They pushed up, hunted the ball and attempted to compress the game immediately. The opening goals actually arrived through something considerably less glamorous. Can Uzun’s set pieces were excellent. His first corner found Burkardt for the fourth-minute opener; another found Koch six minutes later. Those early dead-ball goals effectively destroyed any possibility of the afternoon becoming awkward. They also reinforced how broad Uzun’s creative importance may become. Good to hear that it appears he rejected interest from Galatasaray and will probably be remaining put in the Bundesliga this season. Once St. Tönis began losing control, the mechanisms seen during preparation became more obvious. Both full-backs advanced aggressively. Kosugi, despite all the justified questions about whether he is ready to begin a Bundesliga season as a regular, played extremely high and supplied real attacking width. The Japanese U23 international recorded a hat trick of assists on the afternoon. Baum attacked just as enthusiastically from the opposite side and eventually arrived around the penalty area to smash home Frankfurt’s eighth after Burkardt laid the ball off. There was even a small reminder of what can go wrong. Baum miscontrolled an early diagonal switch and immediately had to pull back Omorou to prevent the resulting counter, earning a seventh-minute booking. Against St. Tönis, that amounted to little more than an administrative inconvenience. Against the sort of winger waiting in the Bundesliga, losing possession with both full-backs encouraged forward may become rather more expensive. The clearest confirmation of Hütter football came with the sixth goal. Frankfurt pressed a short St. Tönis goal kick high, recovered possession and combined beautifully behind the defensive line before Uzun rolled the ball into an empty net. That is the version of the system Hütter wants: compress the opposition, win the ball before it can escape, play vertically and attack before the defensive structure can reorganize. Brentford showed what happens when the first part fails. St. Tönis supplied a considerably gentler example of what happens when it succeeds. The forward partnership also deserves some attention. Burkardt’s hat-trick was hardly surprising after his absurd pre-season, but the manner in which he participated in attacks mattered as much as the goals. Ebnoutalib, meanwhile, scored himself and unselfishly squared for Uzun during the high-press sequence. Against admittedly overwhelmed defenders, the pair demonstrated that Hütter’s second striker does not merely need to stand next to Burkardt and wait for service. Both forwards are expected to move, combine and create room for the narrow attacking midfielders arriving behind them. Uzun naturally benefited enormously from those movements. Onyedika also received exactly the sort of quiet evening Frankfurt presumably wanted. There were no repeat possession disasters. Uneventful competence represented progress in his case. Defensively, virtually nothing was properly tested. There was one exception. Early in the second half Frankfurt pushed up, St. Tönis sent Castrop into the enormous space behind them and Koch had to chase back to extinguish the opportunity. It was only one long ball in an 11-0 match. Brentford produced that situation repeatedly. St. Tönis managed it once. The underlying geometry did not disappear merely because the scoreline became ridiculous. Frankfurt did not spend 45 minutes trying to win 23-0. With the tie finished and several players already requiring treatment, they lowered the tempo, circulated against the deeper block and largely declined unnecessary risks. Knauff replaced Baum at right-back, meaning Hütter even gave his pre-season conversion experiment its first competitive minutes, but the collective emphasis shifted toward getting everyone safely through the evening. Chaïbi eventually supplied the only second-half goal. Sensible behavior from a football team should probably not feel noteworthy. After Brentford, it did. So, did the Pokal prove that Frankfurt solved what went wrong at Brentford? Absolutely not. It did establish that Hütter has not panicked because of it. The 4-2-2-2 remained, as did the aggressive full-backs, high press, narrow creators and willingness to attack vertically. Now comes the part that matters. Eleven goals answered the easy questions. The Bundesliga gets to ask the difficult ones. GGFN  |  Peter Weis