Star-in-the-making Ekitike, Eintracht to test leaders Bayern

Thursday is a holiday here in Germany on the occasion of the Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Day), and while everything feels a lot quieter than usual, the noise generated by football will soon return.

The big Bundesliga games keep on coming. For the second week in a row, Bayern Munich will take on the team positioned immediately behind them in the table and Eintracht Frankfurt in their current form represent no walk in the park. Eintracht domestically have put together an impressive four-game winning streak, their longest such run since the start of 2021.

Recent history shows that something strange often happens to Bayern when the chorus of Eintracht’s evocative Im Herzen von Europa (in the heart of Europe) anthem rings around them and the Frankfurter Stadtwald (the city forest where the stadium is located). For example last season, the Rekordmeister found itself on the wrong end of a 5-1 thrashing.

Eintracht are known as Die launische Diva (the moody diva), but there is often a unity of purpose in these clashes against Germany’s most popular team.

What’s especially intriguing about Dino Toppmöller’s side is the wide range of quality strikers. Omar Marmoush is rightly receiving plaudits for a spectacular beginning to the campaign, with the highlight being his four goal involvements (two goals, two assists) in the 4-2 win away to Holstein Kiel last Sunday, and has netted six goals in five games. You also have Igor Matanovic, who is a handful as a tall, classical Wandstürmer (wall striker).

However, their most magnetic performer is Hugo Ekitike, a delightfully gifted footballer who at 22 has the ability to be a true star. Ekitike, signed permanently from Paris Saint-Germain for around €20 million, is almost balletic in his movements, an artist who practically paints goals rather than merely scoring them. Sporting director Markus Krösche called the Frenchman “a player who can determine his own limits.”

Krösche has added, though, that there is luft nach oben (room for improvement) in the former PSG man’s reading of the game — sometimes there’s a tendency to overdribble and generally overplay.

Still, we’re privileged to be watching such a naturally gifted footballer in action. If fit — Ekitike has been nursing abductor and foot complaints — Bayern must beware on Sunday.

The quest to be Neuer’s successor

Perhaps inevitably when news of Marc-André ter Stegen‘s cruciate injury with Barcelona arrived in this country of 80 million Bundestrainer (Germany national team coaches), as the saying goes, the immediate conclusion was to wonder if Manuel Neuer might now go back on his recent decision to stop playing international football.

Neuer at 38, and who will be 40 come the next World Cup, remains a terrific goalkeeper, but this is not his moment. He himself has said that Germany have two perfectly capable Bundesliga keepers in VfB Stuttgart‘s Alexander Nübel and TSG Hoffenheim‘s Oliver Baumann. Besides, Ter Stegen himself should be back within a year.

Neuer’s 124 caps are a true testament to his legacy, but it’s time for the national team to pass along the gloves.

Matarazzo on the Hoffenheim hot seat

As a big admirer of Hoffenheim coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, it’s not easy to speak the plain truth. The Italian-American’s job is in severe jeopardy, and there is a good chance he will be relieved of his duties with the next international break looming. Ironically, the decision could come in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s meeting with his former club Stuttgart, whose coach Sebastian Hoeneß has lived the exact opposite direction of travel, having himself been dismissed by the Kraichgauer in the summer of 2022.

Matarazzo’s difficulties have been compounded by off-the-pitch instability at Hoffenheim, and losing long-time football director Alexander Rosen didn’t help the situation. The fact of the matter is, even with a seventh-place finish and qualifying for the UEFA Europa League, Hoffenheim conceded 66 goals last season to make them the fourth-leakiest defence in the Bundesliga.

This season, only last-place Kiel have conceded more (17) than Hoffenheim’s 15 in five games. However, Matarazzo still has much to offer German football, and his previous work with Stuttgart and successful rescue mission with Hoffenheim two seasons ago will count for something.

Bundesliga sides impress in Champions League

Sitting in the BayArena on Tuesday night, watching German champions Bayer Leverkusen deservedly beat AC Milan, I was also keeping half an eye on Borussia Dortmund, who were thrashing Scottish champions Celtic 7-1 in the UEFA Champions League. BVB’s Bundesliga form has been nothing like as convincing. This was a cakewalk.

Meanwhile both Bayern and RB Leipzig lost in their Wednesday encounters, and Stuttgart’s Tuesday draw with Sparta Prague puts them under pressure. It is still too early to draw any conclusions about the strength of the Bundesliga’s upper end based on a mixed bag of results and performances so far. Give it time.

Leverkusen-Milan, 1:0 here.
Milan suddenly started to play after the concession and could have levelled. Previously very defensive. Good win. 2/2 for #B04 pic.twitter.com/xSNOCInLJN

— Derek Rae (@RaeComm) October 1, 2024

Refereeing drama becomes talking point

We’re always seeing new things in football, and something happened last Saturday in the 2-2 draw between VfL Wolfsburg and Stuttgart that made us all sit up and take notice. Stuttgart’s Atakan Karazor had already been booked by referee Sven Jablonski whereupon he was shown a second yellow for a perfectly good tackle on Maximilian Arnold.

To his credit, Jablonski in his post-match interviews (yes, referees do this at times here) conceded it was a Fehlentscheidung (wrong decision) on his part and wished VAR could have corrected it. Under current laws, the Kölner Keller (the video assist centre in Cologne) can’t intervene unless it’s a straight red card offence.

But Jablonski is surely right. A red card is a colossal moment and Stuttgart were wrongly a man down for around a quarter of the entire match.

When it’s so obviously a match-defining error, if we’re going to use video, it has to be deployed in this case. Hopefully, the people at the International Football Association Board were watching.

Anyway the DFB’s Sportgericht (sports court) has now retrospectively wiped out Karazor’s second yellow card, meaning he faces no suspension.

German football specialises in chaos

Speaking of decisions, I was tested last Sunday after the Bayern-Leverkusen showdown before heading back up to Cologne. Should I go to see Hoffenheim-Werder Bremen, directly to the Domstadt to watch FC Cologne–Karlsruher in the 2. Bundesliga or the third option, the Kickers Offenbach-Hessen Kassel derby in the fourth-tier Regionalliga-Südwest?

Having followed Kassel since my student days, I felt I owed my loyalty to them on such a big day, so I joined the queue for the Gästeblock (away section) to be part of the loud 7,529 crowd at the Bieberer Berg.

Hello from Offenbach, venue for the derby against Hessen Kassel. (Yes, I’m in the Gästeblock with the other Kassel fans!) pic.twitter.com/nINGwcxP1P

— Derek Rae (@RaeComm) September 29, 2024

Sadly by the 55th minute, Hessen Kassel were already 6-0 down (!), and after cries of “Kiene raus” (coach Alexander Kiene out), virtually the entire Gästeblock emptied — not something you witness often in football. I was one of only a handful of Kassel fans to see the two late goals for KSV go in but 6-2 is still an ignominious and chaotic defeat in a fixture that means so much.

Turbulence really is what you’re missing if German football is not on your weekly radar. On that same afternoon, Hoffenheim were to turn a 3-0 lead into a 4-3 defeat against Bremen, while Cologne were ahead by a similar margin only to have to accept a wild 4-4 draw.

But despite everything, I’m happy with the decision to go to Offenbach. It’s the memories in football — good, bad and, yes, chaotic — that keep us coming back.