Triumphant Eagles strike early in both halves | OneFootball

Eintracht beat city rivals FSV Frankfurt 3-2 in their first friendly of the summer. Aurélio Buta and Can Uzun were on target for the Eagles, who also benefited from an own goal.

Burkardt handed start

Summer signing Jonny Burkardt made his first start for the Eagles after joining the club earlier this month from 1. FSV Mainz 05. Buta, Timmy Chandler, Aurèle Amenda and 18-year-old Marvin Dills were also included in the starting XI at the PSD Bank Arena.

Uzun impresses

Eintracht, sporting their new adidas home jersey, showed no sign of rustiness against their city rivals, taking the lead with their first attack of the match. Burkardt and Can Uzun linked up brilliantly on the edge of the box to play in Buta, who guided a left-footed effort into the bottom corner with only 100 seconds on the clock.

Uzun was heavily involved in Eintracht’s second goal, too. The 19-year-old steered a perfectly weighted through ball into Burkardt, whose dinked effort rebounded off the woodwork – only for FSV defender Lukas Gottwalt to inadvertently turn the rebound into his own net via the inside of the post. Emmanuel McDonald struck the post at the other end soon afterwards, but Ismail Harnafi got the better of Kevin Trapp with nine minutes of the first half remaining to reduce the arrears.

Eagles hold on

Eintracht boss Dino Toppmöller made four changes at the break, replacing Chandler, Buta, Burkardt and Trapp with Robin Koch, Rasmus Kristensen, Michy Batshuayi and Jens Grahl. It was Uzun, though, who restored the Eagles’ two-goal advantage in the second minute of the second half, firing home off the underside of the crossbar after Dills’ mis-hit shot had spun into his path. It was 3-2 just ten minutes later, however, Amin Farouk drilling into the bottom corner after Grahl had blocked his initial effort.

Chances dried up as the second half progressed, although Batshuayi nearly scored a spectacular fourth for Eintracht when his curling shot was parried to safety by goalkeeper Henry Bremer. All in all, though, Toppmöller will be very pleased with his team’s efforts in their pre-season opener. “Overall we’ve learned some important lessons” “It’s always fun to play in your own city and give the fans a game where they don’t have far to travel,” Toppmöller said afterwards. “Like last year, it was a fair contest with a lot of chances and plenty of goals. In that respect, it was a pretty successful friendly for all parties. From a broader perspective, we were just missing too many players. We could have – and indeed should have – scored four or five more goals and defended better at one or two counter-attacks, but overall we’ve learned some important lessons.”