UEFA Europa League 2019/20: FC Flora vs Eintracht Frankfurt – tactical analysis

In the early rounds of the UEFA Europa League qualifiers, Eintracht Frankfurt were looking to start their season in the right way, and look to leave behind a summer which has robbed them of their previous squad of last season, who was so successful in this competition. Their opposition, FC Flora, made it difficult for them at times, but the game was an inevitable reminder on just how much they may miss their departed men Jović and Haller, and also highlighted some problems within Frankfurts offensive movements. In this tactical analysis, Ill look at both of these subjects and see how it affected the game.

Lineups 

Eintracht Frankfurt lined up in a 3-5-2, a slight variation on the 3-4-1-2 used last season. However, at some points in the game, Frankfurt did go back to this, but as I will explain in greater detail later, I dont feel they did this enough and could have been much more successful had they utilised these tactics more. Flora meanwhile lined up in a 4-4-2, which set up an interesting deep block that Frankfurt had to attempt to solve.

Floras deep block

Being the underdogs, Flora sat back with virtually all their players behind the ball in a 4-4-2 shape as mentioned. This 4-4-2 gave them a good theoretical chance of hindering Frankfurts attacks, but it was clear quite quickly that Flora were going to struggle.

Below we see how Im sure Flora wanted the game to go. Frankfurt (in red) are in their 3-5-2 while Flora (in green) are in their 4-4-2. In order to remain defensively solid, it made sense if the wingers role was to press the wing-back as they are matched up. This leaves the full-back to stay as part of the back four and deal with the striker who is dropping into the half-space.