At the end of the last season, Oliver Glasner left Wolfsburg and became the new Eintracht Frankfurt head coach. Schlappekicker had a difficult start in 2021/22 Bundesliga as they began the journey with a 2-5 loss to Borussia Dortmund, then, only had one win in the first 10 games. They were very close to the relegation play-off zone after the draw against RB Leipzig (15th). Dramatically, the 47-year-old head coach turned things around and led Frankfurt back to the top-four race, as they won six out of the last seven, entering the winter break with just one point behind the UEFA Champions League spot.
Apart from Wolfsburg, Glasner previously gained experience at LASK and SV Ried, he was also one of the assistant coaches of Roger Schmidt in RB Salzburg because he asked Ralf Rangnick for that opportunity. Intriguingly, Glasner was not very “Red Bull” compared to the likes of Jesse Marsch or Matthias Jaissle, he paid greater emphasis on the positional structure of the team instead of only focusing on verticality. This tactical analysis explains Glasner’s tactics and philosophy of plays transmitted to Schlappekicker this season, and the secrets behind their strong streaks.
Power of the left corridor
In the first few games, Glasner played Frankfurt in a back four, just like his 4-3-3 at Wolfsburg as well. But things did not go well, so he reverted his side to a back three system that succeeded in Adi Hütter’s tenure. Specifically, his side played in a 3-4-3 or a 3-4-2-1 and the players fit very well in this structure.
In the offensive organizations, their key players were Daichi Kamada and Filip Kostić. Both were the regular starters who played on the left side, and this was the flank that became the main source of threat. The 3-4-3 or 3-4-2-1 formation had two 6s, which allowed Schlappekicker to play with a 3-2 structure in the construction phases proceed the ball forward.
The first image shows Kamada’s impact in the construction of the attack. Usually, Kostić would push high to provide the offensive height and push the wide defender down. This allowed Kamada to drop into the vacated left-sided area in the second third. The example also demonstrates a sequence of play, as Frankfurt preferred to move the ball from the central centre-back to the left centre-back instead of chipping to Kamada’s zone. It was important as that invited the press of the strikers, and they had a 3v2 numerical advantage in the first line to play out from the back.
The three centre-backs of Frankfurt’s 3-2 imbalanced Mainz 05’s 5-3-2 and you could interpret that as a 5-2-3 as well. The most important were the positions of 6s, who stayed in the centre to fix the opposition midfielders. Then, the red spaces were created for Kamada to turn and exploit as the Mainz midfielders were late to close that space.
