Marked for Michael Zetterer
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Oct 2026
0‑3 to RB Leipzig, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Arthur Theate was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Eintracht Frankfurt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ritsu Doan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Farès Chaïbi, and the manager let it.
Boardroom19 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Eintracht Frankfurt dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I did not go to Bayern Munich to sit and watch. I want to come back to Eintracht Frankfurt and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michael Zetterer
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eintracht Frankfurt lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.30, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Can Uzun, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.11
A mark of 8.11 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Eintracht Frankfurt this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Kauã Santos is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ritsu Doan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
The crowd has taken to Can Uzun
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match26 Sep 2026
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Mainz 05 spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
Michael Zetterer damages knee ligaments — 22 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match19 Sep 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Eintracht Frankfurt are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Arthur Theate was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
2‑3 to St. Pauli, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Arthur Theate
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michael Zetterer
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eintracht Frankfurt lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Up for the corner, and Robin Koch delivers — 7.92
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Robin Koch scored, was marked 7.92, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ritsu Doan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match12 Sep 2026
1‑2 to Werder Bremen, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Leopold Zingerle was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Chances created: 4. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
Market14 Sep 2026
The window shut and Mahmoud Dahoud is still in the building
Eintracht Frankfurt spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market7 Sep 2026
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Eintracht Frankfurt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ritsu Doan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Robin Koch gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match5 Sep 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jonathan Burkardt signs something — a contract at Eintracht Frankfurt or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.