“We’ll need to be sharp” | OneFootball

Head coach Dino Toppmöller wants his side to play with courage, passion and bite in Munich as he looks ahead to upcoming opponents Bayern.

Dino Toppmöller on ...

…how Eintracht will approach the game: “As usual, we’ll need a good mix of high pressing and patience, as well as defending in a deep block at times. The quality of the opposition always determines whether you get pinned back in your own half or not. Bayern are a top-class side with a lot of quality in every position. We’ll need good positioning and organisation, but we will also have to manage the transition into a high press every so often. We’ll need to be sharp when we don’t have the ball and have a good structure when we do. We want to have more possession than we did in the reverse meeting earlier this season. In that match you could see that we can be dangerous in all phases of the game.”

…the previous meeting in the first half of the season: “Obviously that was a terrific performance from all of us, we absolutely pushed ourselves to the limit. But we also had a bit of luck – a lot of things went our way. We deserved that success. We covered a lot more ground that they did, we invested more and got our reward. There was a fantastic atmosphere and I still get goosebumps when I think about it.”

…the team: “We try to keep the players who played in a flow. It’s really important for us to have quality on the bench in different positions so that we can push on and have the feeling that we can get better. Over the past few weeks we’ve talked a lot about wanting to have everyone available for the season run-in so that we have the competition for places. It’s great to see the way the players throw themselves into tackles in training, the way they fight and as such how they have pushed themselves into performing at a high level. That will help us in our matches.”

…personnel: “The good news is that Tuta is back after suspension. Unfortunately, Chaibi has been ill since yesterday. We'll have to wait and make a late call on whether he's in the squad. Nacho Ferri injured his ankle in the U21 match and is out for this week.”

…Sebastian Rode: “We’re working on getting Sebastian onto the pitch for our final game of the season. He’s on the right track. Obviously for him it’s a great feeling to be able to smell the grass again, to be on the pitch with a ball at his feet. We’re optimistic. He’s making progress exactly the way we wanted him to.”