Eintracht Frankfurt analysis with European football expert, Andy Brassell

Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt are up next for us in Matchday Three of our UEFA Champions League, Group D campaign at the Deutsche Bank Stadium on Tuesday evening (8pm) and here, European football expert Andy Brassell, a regular on the pages and podcasts of the likes of The Guardian, Football Ramble and talkSPORT, gives us his insight into last season’s UEFA Europa League winners.

Bundesliga/European form

Andy: “You can look at Eintracht Frankfurt finishing 11^th in the Bundesliga last season, but that’s not quite the right way to look at it. For instance, if you look at Sevilla under Unai Emery, they finished seventh, but won the Europa League and qualified for the Champions League. He did the same at Villareal as well, and it’s about concentrating on one competition, realising it’s going to be tough to make the top four. Bear in mind, last season, Eintracht Frankfurt were unbeaten throughout their whole Europa League campaign, playing against some very good sides (including Barcelona, West Ham in the semi-final and Rangers in the final) and that’s in a season where they lost their top goalscorer, Andre Silva (to RB Leipzig). A club at that level can’t replace someone like that, it’s not possible. Rafael Santos Borre came in and scored in their run against Barcelona, West Ham and Rangers in the final, but he wasn’t prolific across the whole season.”

'On paper, they are stronger…'

Andy: “You would say that at the start of this season, Eintracht Frankfurt look stronger, on paper, than last season. They’ve brought in Mario Gotze (from PSV) and Lucas Alario (Bayer Leverkusen), a centre forward who knows how to score goals in Germany and in European competition. The problem for them is they lost Filip Kostic, arguably their best player, a left wing-back converted from a winger, to Juventus. It’s interesting as Oliver Glasner, who was previous at Wolfsburg, is a very good organiser of a defence, but sometimes the feeling is they’re not as attacking as they could be, because he’s someone who does tend to concentrate on team structure. He had an amazing first season in 2021/22, an incredible achievement to win the Europa League, and a big thing for them is that there was interest in goalkeeper Kevin Trapp, but he decided to stay. He has a real attachment to Frankfurt. The atmosphere at Deutsche Bank Stadium for these European night is always amazing as I’m sure fans of Chelsea (semi-finals of the Europa League in 2019) and West Ham (semi-finals of the Europa League last season) would testify.”