Oliver Glasner has been coach of Eintracht Frankfurt since this season. At the end of the year, the Austrian draws a first conclusion. Despite a strong final spurt in the first half of the season, the coach does not rate it very highly, but also sees a lot of positive things.
“I really like it here,” Glasner begins his end-of-year interview on Eintracht Frankfurt’s club website. However, his tenure, which began on 1 July, got off to a famously bumpy start. The first competitive match at the beginning of August was a 0:2 defeat against third division side Waldhof Mannheim, which also meant elimination from the DFB Cup in the first round.
Special praise for keeper Trapp – “big steps” in the team
In the aftermath, things continued to not go smoothly. After a clear defeat at the start of the Bundesliga season in Dortmund (2:5), Glasner had to wait until matchday 7 to be allowed to cheer for the first time in the league. Frankfurt won 2-1 against FC Bayern, of all teams – not least thanks to an outstanding goalkeeper named Kevin Trapp. Also because of this game, Glasner says: “We also had a phase in which Kevin Trapp saved quite a few unstoppable shots and there could have been more goals conceded.”
Mind you, more goals conceded than there have been over the entire Hinrunde anyway, according to Glasner. In the Bundesliga, however, 24 after 17 matchdays is not much, only six clubs have conceded less. In terms of goals scored, however, Eintracht is only in the midfield of the table. That things are nevertheless looking up in attack is shown by a look at the last three games of the year, in which Glasner’s team scored nine goals – a third of its goals in the league.
On the basis of this and only one defeat in the past ten competitive games (seven wins), the Austrian speaks of having “caught up athletically” with the team. His players have also made “great strides forward”.
Despite finishing the first half of the season in 6th place and qualifying for the last 16 of the Europa League, the Eagles’ coach does not blame the fact that it took too long for his football to be understood in all four of his head coaching positions. Rather, he says, it’s about other factors such as too much information for the players at once – “maybe a little too much at times. You could tell they had a lot of thinking to do. If you think too much on the pitch, you become slow in the actions. “
However, this process was indispensable. With time, the automatisms would have taken hold. In the beginning, pointing out where to stay in certain spaces on the field simply “demanded more of the heads and less of the legs. Right now, we are in the process of turning that around a bit. In the head, more is already stored on the hard drive, the legs are already doing a lot by themselves. Nevertheless, I still see a lot of input that we can give to the players.”
This includes the variability of the systems. “We first had to really get to know each other in order to finally find the formation that suits the players in the best possible way,” says Glasner, who is now playing in a 3-4-3 after a 4-2-3-1 and 3-5-2.
“Very clear”: Progress in attack the biggest
Glasner sees the greatest progress in attack. “Quite clearly” his team has made the biggest leap forward in the game. Looking back at the first ten competitive games (an average of only one goal per game), that was “not really nice to watch at the beginning, even for me”. “We had to work hard for that because the players thought so much. Now many actions are clearer and more automated,” explains the 47-year-old.
Glasner is also “extremely pleased” with the “characters and types” at his disposal. Despite difficult phases, there has never been a bad mood. He uses veteran Makoto Hasebe (37), who played little at the beginning of the season, as a role model for this.
Overall, Glasner’s assessment of his tenure so far is quite solid, according to himself. “We are between five and six, when ten would be the best. I am a coach who is rarely satisfied, which is what I am said to be, and I still see a lot of potential. Coupled with the will and willingness of the team, though, I’m sure we can get a lot better.” What he sees, he says, is “compared to where I want to be, that’s why it’s only a score between five and six.”
Nevertheless, he feels he has had a “really great first six months”, with not only the club itself but also the fans in the stadium creating a great atmosphere.
