Preview: Two teams in need of points | OneFootball

Sandwiched between the two legs of the Ajax last-16 tie, Eintracht face Union Berlin on Sunday aiming to get “back to winning ways in the Bundesliga”. The visitors have the same aim.

Backdrop

Eintracht come into this meeting following back-to-back defeats in the Bundesliga, having lost 4-0 to Bayern Munich and 4-1 to Bayer 04 Leverkusen. The Berliners are on a three-match losing run in the top flight, going down to Borussia Dortmund (6-0), Holstein Kiel (1-0) and Borussia Mönchengladbach (2-1). After the deserved 2-1 victory at Ajax in the UEFA Europa League, Dino Toppmöller’s side are now targeting three points again in the league.

“Now it’s about getting back to winning ways in the Bundesliga,” stated Toppmöller at Friday’s pre-match press conference. “We’re determined to do that with all our might. A result such as the one on Thursday obviously helps with that.”

Frankfurt still third

While the Eagles have fallen behind recently with just one win from their last six Bundesliga outings, they remain in third place with 42 points, a position they’ve occupied since Matchday 9. Union, meanwhile, are 14th in the table with 23 points.

The Skhiri effect

Ellyes Skhiri, who scored the winner in the 2-1 success in Amsterdam, will be missing on Sunday after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season. Interestingly, Eintracht’s win rate with the midfielder in the team is 42 percent – without him it drops to 30 percent. Robin Koch, who’s currently nursing an infection following his mild concussion, is a doubt.

As for the capital club, they are experiencing their worst campaign in the top flight since promotion in 2019. Eleven defeats from the last 14 games paint a clear picture, including that 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Dortmund and the disappointing 1-0 loss at home to Kiel last time out.

Baumgart’s Eintracht record

Steffen Baumgart has only been in the job at Union Berlin since January, but his history as a coach shows that he likes facing Frankfurt. The 53-year-old’s personal record against the Hessians reads three wins, three draws and just one defeat – a 3-2 loss in Frankfurt with SC Paderborn on the final day of the COVID-affected 2019/20 season.

His counterpart Toppmöller draws comparisons on a different level: “The way Steffen Baumgart’s teams play is always similar. I think there are more rewarding tasks than taking over a team in the middle of a season – without having experienced it myself. We know ourselves how important it is to have some preparation time to work on many things in detail. I therefore believe that Steffen will draw the right conclusions. Hopefully only from Monday.”