AThis Tuesday it will return to stand-by mode. As an attentive observer of the football classic Netherlands against Germany in the Amsterdam Arena. Then Kevin Trapp, the goalkeeper of Frankfurt Eintracht, will watch this international match just as intently as he did against Israel in Sinsheim on Saturday.
With one big difference: Three days ago, the 31-year-old from Saarland, when he was sitting on the bench in the first half like now, knew long ago that his time, i.e. his sixth appearance for the first selection of the German Football Association, was in the second 45 minutes would come. He replaced his previously unemployed colleague Marc-André ter Stegen, while goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who turned 36 on Sunday, watched benevolently from the bench from his two deputies.
Trapp used his brief assignment when he was really challenged the one time in the 2-0 win: in the second minute of injury time in a largely one-sided encounter. If he had previously only easily caught a ball that came straight at him, he now had the ultimate chance of winning. After Nico Schlotterbeck’s clumsy foul on the penalty taker, Yonatan Cohen and Trapp, who was fixated on the point, faced each other.
Cohen shot hard, half-up and placed on the left corner of the goal; Trapp flew into his right corner of the goal, lightning fast and elegant at the same time, and parried the ball, which he let bounce off with both hands. One scene was enough to turn the 1.89 meter long, often spectacularly parrying keeper into a little hero of a friendly encounter in which German goalkeeping skills had not been required until then.
“Lightness and naturalness”
It may be that this penalty kick could have been useful for the further course of his career, which had already been spurred on by minor phases of weakness for years. After all, it was less than six months ago that national coach Hansi Flick placed the Frankfurt goalkeeper at the bottom of his ranking. In October 2021, Joachim Löw’s successor said: “Manuel Neuer is number one for us ahead of Marc-André ter Stegen, Bernd Leno and Kevin Trapp. But everyone also has the opportunity to climb the rankings.”
Trapp used this opportunity a little later, reacting as quickly as a keeper should be, at the first opportunity. Above all, Eintracht owed it to him in the 2-1 away win against champions FC Bayern Munich that Frankfurt were able to celebrate their first coup of the season under coach Oliver Glasner.
The Austrian coach described the consequences of this after his team’s 2-1 draw in the Europa League group game at Olympiakos Piraeus: “He gained a lot of self-confidence from the extraordinarily good performance in Munich. Now he has found the ease and naturalness to make the right decisions. He reads opposing forwards very well.” Ask Yonatan Cohen.
Trapp’s Munich Air Show has catapulted the keeper, who has been consistently exemplary ever since, to new heights with captain’s virtues. In the meantime he even seems to be a real competitor of ter Stegen in the duel for the place behind the top dog Neuer.
And so the Frankfurter is already looking forward to the two quarter-finals in the Europa League between his Eintracht and the glorious FC Barcelona with Ter Stegen as number one between the posts. Then the two colleagues from the national team, Trapp and Ter Stegen, compete against each other. Just like in the round of 16 of the 2016/17 Champions League season, when Trapp, then in the Paris Saint-Germain jersey, celebrated a 4-0 home win and then fell out of the clouds with the 1-6 away defeat.
Trapp has been back at home in Frankfurt since 2018. Arrived in the prime of his years as a professional soccer player, it remains to be seen whether or not he will extend his contract, which expires in mid-2023. On Saturday in Sinsheim he once again promoted himself and his top quality. He saved the eighteenth of sixty penalties against himself. A good rate for a goalkeeper who has long been outstanding.
