Looking back ten years to the 2015/2016 season, Eintracht Frankfurt were in deep trouble.
After conceding a late goal against Werder Bremen on the last matchday of the season, the club dropped to 16th in the league and had to participate in the relegation play-off.
With the club on the edge of going down once again, not many believed in a turnaround in Frankfurt, but the club proved the doubters wrong.
Over the last ten years, Eintracht Frankfurt have established themselves as one of the best clubs in Germany, winning the DFB-Pokal, the UEFA Europa League, and being very successful in the league as well.
Their most significant accomplishment was qualifying for the UEFA Champions League via the Bundesliga table last season, the second time the club had qualified for the competition in the last 10 years.
Another impressive thing about their run is that they had multiple managers over the years; it wasn’t just one person doing an amazing job.
The club managed to establish sustainable growth in their organisation.
The start of the season has been impressive for both current coach Dino Toppmöller and his team, with convincing wins across all competitions.
Over the last couple of weeks, Eintracht Frankfurt have started to struggle, dropping back to seventh in the Bundesliga and losing a couple of games in the Champions League as well.
In this Eintracht Frankfurt tactical analysis, we will examine Dino Toppmöller‘s tactics, the style of play Eintracht Frankfurt are trying to establish this season, and where their struggles lie.
Variability In Eintracht Frankfurt Formation
For the longest time, Eintracht Frankfurt have played with three centre-backs as the core of their formation, but when hiring Dino Toppmöller, Die Adler chose a coach who prefers a back-four and shifts the focus more toward a possession-based playing style.
This was just the obvious next step in their transition into a top team in the Bundesliga.
After trying to establish his back-four in Frankfurt, Toppmöller still brought back the back-three, especially in games when his team needs to defend a lot, simply because it’s a better fit for their squad.
In the game against Barcelona, Toppmöller and his men were the underdogs, forced to defend for the majority of the game, and the tactical answer to that fact was defending in a very compact 5-4-1 block.
This gave Barcelona a lot of numbers in their last line while still being able to double on the wings and keep their midfield closed off for Barcelona.
Obviously, they had to give up any idea of a high-pressing attack with this formation, especially because their lone striker had to cover a lot of distance, but he never stood a real chance of getting pressure on the ball.
Still, they managed to defend rather well that game, so it was a conscious and correct decision to keep the block this compact.
When building up, Frankfurt drastically change the shape of their formation and resorts to building in a 4-2-4 shape.
Their double-pivot is no longer at the same height; the near-sided midfielder is pushing forward while the far-sided midfielder is staying closer to the backline, right behind the first line of press.
Too often, they get forced to play the ball towards their full-back in these situations and don’t even find the solution through the triangle, but rather get their full-back under immediate pressure from a opposing winger.
As we can see in the picture, they often get stuck near the sideline, and they don’t really have good options out of those situations.
The passing lanes towards the centre of the field are easily cut off, and the full-backs often have a huge problem when they have the ball at their feet, not because they lack quality, but because they are simply put in a very disadvantaged position.
This has caused a lot of early losses for Eintracht Frankfurt this season, and they have had many problems conceding chances in those situations.
The two narrow strikers in the centre can only receive high and long balls, but these are relatively easy to defend.
The vertical passes to the winger don’t break the press, and the wingers often receive in a closed stance and are forced into tough duels.
Eintracht Frankfurt Traditional Strengths
Looking at the people in charge at Eintracht Frankfurt now and the coaches they had over the last couple of successful seasons, the influence of Red Bull football can’t be overlooked.
For the longest time, the club defined itself by a very aggressive playstyle centred on counterpressing and counterattacking with young, athletic players, just like the Red Bull teams around the world play the game.
While the team has had its fair share of struggles over the past couple of weeks, its intensity and counterattacking have remained very high throughout those games.
As we can see in this situation, during their game against Barcelona, Toppmöller knew the only chance his men had was to defend hard and with high intensity, and to catch Barca on the counter.
The biggest attacking threat for the Blaugrana comes from their wings, so, as stated before, Toppmöller decided to double both wingers, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, when they had the ball.
In this case, Yamal was the one dribbling towards the Frankfurt defence.
The German coach used his wing-back and his outside midfielder to attack the ball in these situations.
Yamal tried to force him towards the outside, on his weaker right foot, and to prevent him from cutting inside.
In this situation, Yamal tried to cut inside but was stopped by the supporting midfielder and lost the ball in a 1-v-2 situation.
From there on out, Frankfurt did not hesitate one bit; they are always very keen to take their chances on the counter and rarely try to establish possession.
Toppmöller’s men would rather try to get vertical quickly.
Another very positive thing is the number of supporting runs: all the players are making high-intensity runs to help the player on the ball.
Frankfurt prioritise the centre of the field when counterattacking, so the ball gets carried towards that area quickly.
With their lone striker, they now threaten the run behind the backline right at the edge of being offside, forcing the defenders to drop back a little and defend the run, allowing the ball to be carried even further up the pitch.
In the end, Toppmöller’s team managed to drag the backline close to the edge of their own box and carry the ball into the final third.
There, striker Ansgar Knauff moves towards the outside a bit, getting away from the centre-back and now having inside leverage against the fullback.
Eintracht Frankfurt use this to chip the central defenders; Knauff makes a diagonal run and finishes off the counter with a beautiful shot into the bottom corner, giving them the lead at Camp Nou.
A lot has changed over the years, but even when they struggle, the core values this team was built on remain visible and effective to this day.
Eintracht Frankfurt Problems Against The Ball
So, we established that Eintracht Frankfurt have been good on the counter this season, but struggle in possession and with their attacking press.
While those factors are essential for Dino Topmöller, his team struggles with one thing even more: their defence has been atrocious so far this season.
There has been talk here in Germany about how the team defends crosses over the last week, after the games against Barcelona and Augsburg.
Still, in my opinion, this is not the key problem Toppmöller has to fix to salvage the season.
Here we can see a situation early in the game against RB Leipzig.
Leipzig were building up while Frankfurt were sitting back, not pressing the goalkeeper or the centre-backs.
This allowed Leipzig to push their full-back inwards and play the pass towards him.
Frankfurt now want to press, but the player who needs to press David Raum here is a midfielder far away from Raum.
Covering this distance quickly enough is simply impossible, so the pressing assignments in line 1 need some work.
Still, they committed a lot of players forward for no actual pressure, which now means many of them have to cover a lot of ground to get back behind the ball.
With just two passes, Leipzig were able to get behind the midfield of Frankfurt.
These runs are very painful and cost a lot of power, and it just shows that Frankfurt might run a lot, but they don’t run efficiently.
Their defenders are currently under a lot of scrutiny for the team’s defensive struggles, but they are often thrown into bad situations.
As we can see in the picture above, the midfield is beaten way too easily, and the centre-backs are forced to make snap decisions about stepping up or dropping back, which often leaves them losing.
Here, three defenders decide to step up, but the left-back decides to fall back, playing the Leipzig attacker onside for his run behind the backline.
The same goes for their counterpressing attempts.
We can see a situation after a long ball in this picture, with many Eintracht Frankfurt players in the area around the ball.
Still, Leipzig are able to collect the second ball behind most of those players and with their aggressive playstyle, this forces an additional player to step up and engage in the counterpress, but leaving two players open behind him.
Leipzig easily find a solution to get the ball to their attacking midfielder in this case.
Antonio Nusa takes off then; there are no midfielders left to press him, and he can just carry the ball forward.
Again, many players are forced to make recovery runs and invest a huge amount of power and stamina just to track back and try to get behind the ball again.
With all midfielders out of commission, once again, a defender is forced to step up and try to defend the 1-v-1 against one of the best dribblers in the league in midfield, while the other defenders are getting pushed back by the runs of the other attackers.
Nusa simply wins the take on and progresses the ball further, finding his teammate on the side and allowing him to receive the ball in space and full stride.
Eintracht Frankfurt have had multiple situations like this one over the last couple of weeks, and Toppmöller really needs to find a solution quickly.
They invest heavily in their press and counterpress, but the distances are just too long, leading to many breakthroughs and forcing the players into intense recovery runs.
If their press works better or if they focus on defending as they did against Barcelona, Eintracht Frankfurt have had more success, simply because the decision-making for their defenders gets way easier then and they are more compact overall.
Conclusion
In the end, Dino Topmöller never felt like a perfect fit at Eintracht Frankfurt; despite the success, there was always some form of resentment in the relationship.
I don’t even think Frankfurt are playing poorly right now, but they have some struggles they need to fix quickly, because we are in the decisive part of the season.
The most important thing Toppmöller needs to do is build on the club’s and team’s strengths and identity; this will help them regain some confidence.
The second thing he needs to solve is their press.
They commit a lot to it, but it just doesn’t work, so he either needs to find a way to put more pressure on or just work around playing without an attacking press.
