Most stadium visitors certainly have football knowledge, but that wasn’t even necessary to give an accurate summary of the game between Frankfurt and Bochum after just 20 minutes. “Bochum, Bochum, second league – oh, how nice it is,” sneered the Eintracht Frankfurt fan base, while VfL Bochum’s packed guest block soon announced in a staccato manner: “We’ve had enough.” Rarely has a Bundesliga game had such an effect the once again sold out arena in the city forest was so one-sided. In the end, the Hessians, who lived out their joy of playing uninhibited and unhindered, defeated the Revierklub 7:2 (4:1). Especially when Eintracht picked up the pace because their opponents foolishly wanted to press high at the beginning, the level of overtaxing for the bottom of the table reached worrying proportions.
When Hugo Ekitiké made it 1-0, Omar Marmoush was able to simply run away from his opponent Erhan Masovic (9th), when Marmoush’s free kick made it 2-0, the wall dissolved when he jumped up (18th), then Maximilian Wittek, who was substituted shortly afterwards, squandered the ball against Ansgar Knauff (20th). Later, Nathaniel Brown (32nd), Mahmoud Dahoud (61st), Can Uzun (66th) and again Ekitiké (69th) added their names to the list of goalscorers. The goals from Dani de Wit (35th) and Philipp Hoffmann (51st) couldn’t even save Bochum’s sense of honor.
Interim coach Markus Feldhoff immediately announced that they would have to think about it in detail after the trip home: “It can’t go on like this.” The assistant coach, who was temporarily promoted to replace the dismissed Peter Zeidler, had a lesson from the previous week against FC Bayern (0: 5) highlighted many positive aspects, now the 50-year-old spoke plainly: “I can only apologize to every VfL Bochum fan for what we offered today. I had spoken before the game that we wanted to provide proof of our performance that we were competitive in the league.” We were “miles away” from that.
Which is why substitute Gerrit Holtmann went to the angry supporters during the half-time break, whose frustration factor reached a new peak in Frankfurt. “I went there voluntarily because I was looking for an exchange,” Holtmann explained to Sky. “I know it’s hard to stay positive. I simply tried to explain that it’s not possible this season, that we’ll be booed – no matter what the situation is.” On a match day on which newly promoted Kiel and St. Pauli celebrated their first victories, VfL slipped deeper and deeper the mess. Center forward Hoffmann said: “Such a performance is simply not ready for the first league.”
“If we keep working like this and stay down to earth, we can achieve a lot,” says the outstanding Omar Marmoush
In any competitive game, Eintracht has never encountered as little resistance as in this shooting festival. Even in the cup game against second division club Eintracht Braunschweig (4:1) and most recently against Rigas FS (1:0) in the Europa League, scoring goals wasn’t that easy. Marmoush, who is in outstanding form, trumped Eintracht icon Anthony Yeboah with his tenth goal of the season after nine match days. “If we continue to work like this and stay down to earth, we can achieve a lot,” said the Egyptian. In his slipstream, the young replacements in whom Eintracht coach Dino Toppmöller had probably trusted in anticipation of a less demanding task also impressed.
It shouldn’t be a risk against these Bochum players to put the American Nnamdi Collins, 20, the German U21 international Brown, 21, and the Frenchman Jean-Matteo Bahoya, 19, in the starting line-up. Uzun, 18, was later added, whom Eintracht had signed from 1. FC Nürnberg for a transfer fee of ten million euros. “I’m really happy for the boys because they showed it in preparation, but couldn’t do it here because others were ahead of them. Now they have shown it,” praised Toppmöller.
Brown and Uzun each scored their first goal in the Bundesliga, which was accompanied by a celebration that had been practiced from their shared days in Nuremberg. Left-back Brown reported on the “best day” of his life: “Yes, it’s a childhood dream: first Bundesliga goal in a stadium like this, at a club like this, with a team like this.” In their elation, the two of them chatted about what was strange Bet is on. Brown doesn’t believe that his friend Uzun will have his driver’s license in his hands until his 19th birthday on November 11th. “He still doesn’t have one. I think it won’t work anymore. The bet is on me.”
