At the stadium – Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Cologne FC 1:2

I’m a native German writer and  an enthusiastic fan of Eintracht Frankfurt. Whenever I got the opportunity to visit a game in the Commerzbank Arena, I take this opportunity. Last match-day I visited the match against Cologne.

Stadium: Commerzbank Arena ( Eintracht Frankfurt)

Attendance: 45,100

Ticket-Price: Main stand – 23 Euro (32 US-Dollars/ 20 GBP) – reduction for students

Travelling to Frankfurt was very exhausting because it was snowing all the time and the highway was full of traffic jam. Normally it takes one and a half hour to reach Frankfurt from my university but on this day it took three hours.

Because of this, I took of my seat in the Commerzbank Arena at least fifth teen minutes after the match had started. I hoped desperately that my team would indemnify me for this horrible journey.

Frankfurt had to compensate the injury of Swiss midfielder Pirmin Schwegler, who was one of the best players in the team this season. Frankfurt was undefeated since six games.  Cologne must relinquish national-team striker Lucas Podolski, but played a lot better in the last two games against Dortmund and Wolfsburg than in the first half of the season.

In the first half the two teams showed their worst football, no highlights. In the second half cologne introduced its new midfielder Soran Tosic, who had played for Manchester United. He provides cologne much more offensive pressure and even Frankfurt shaped its game more offensively than in the first half. In the 59^th minute of the game Maniche scored the goal giving lead for cologne and my state of mind was worse.

Eintracht-coach Michael Skibbe introduced the two midfielders Ümit Korkmaz and Caio to increase the pressure. After the substitutions Frankfurt played much better and was the dominant team on the field. Defender Chris scored the equaliser in the 76^th minute for Frankfurt after a corner and I celebrated this very extensively. The equaliser gave my team the initial spark to go for winning the game. Frankfurt got several chances to score another goal but missed all of them. Cologne was only in the position to defend the draw.

In the 84^th minute my worst nightmare became true! After a cologne free-kick, Eintracht-defender Marco Russ deflected the ball in his own goal. 1-2 for cologne!! Frankfurt wasn’t able to turn the game after this shock.

This result made me very sad because Eintracht Frankfurt played better than cologne – but that’s football. I watched an uneventful first half but a very dramatic and powerful second half. Unfortunately my team didn’t bring the match to a favourable conclusion.