As of: February 4, 2024, 7:19 a.m
By: Christoph Klaucke
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Split
Frankfurt loanee Faride Alidou scored the opening goal for Cologne against Eintracht.
© Ralf Treese/Imago
Eintracht Frankfurt loses 0-2 at 1. FC Cologne.
In the defeat, the Hessians played outnumbered and received two dismissals.
Cologne – Eintracht Frankfurt conceded at 16th place in the table.
the Bundesliga 1. FC Köln suffered a setback in the fight for the international places.
Dino Toppmöller's team lost 2-0 in the cathedral city.
Frankfurt loanee Faride Alidou (67th minute) gave Cologne the lead after Frankfurt's Niels Nkounkou (66th) had to leave the field with a yellow-red card.
Jan Thielmann (80th) increased the score to 2-0 for the hosts.
Afterwards, Tuta (83') also saw yellow-red, so Eintracht ended the game with nine players.
While the Frankfurt team missed out on at least a temporary jump to fifth place due to the defeat, Cologne is in 16th place in the table.
initially four points ahead of a relegation zone.
Eintracht Frankfurt suffers a setback in the Champions League race
For Frankfurt, the first defeat in 2024 was a bitter setback in the hoped-for race to catch up to the Champions League ranks.
With a win, coach Dino Toppmöller's team could have moved within three points of fourth-placed Borussia Dortmund.
Toppmöller made two changes to his team, including moving Ellyes Skhiri into the team after his return from the Africa Cup of Nations.
The Tunisian had played for FC in the previous four years and was the top scorer in the previous season with seven goals.
Faride Alidou, who was loaned out to Cologne, initiates Eintracht's defeat
The Frankfurt team started surprisingly inhibited, the Cologne team, on the other hand, gave full throttle from the start.
In the 5th minute, Dejan Ljubicic unfortunately hit the ball with his shin from six meters, nine minutes later national goalkeeper Kevin Trapp deflected a shot from Jan Thielmann from a tight angle with his fingertips next to the goal.
FC, who started the game with a pitiful twelve goals from 19 games, at least showed a significant improvement in their forward play.
If he came anywhere near the goal, the opportunity was missed.
For example, when Ljubicic shot the ball far over after a nice individual performance (39th).
But the Austrian at least tried again and again; his shot from 18 meters right before the break was more dangerous.
Significantly, Eintracht's first chance came after a corner when Robin Koch headed Mario Götze's cross just wide of the goal (28').
Götze also prepared the first opportunity of the game, but after his lobbed pass, Skhiri failed with his direct pass to former colleague Marvin Schwäbe in the Cologne goal (40th).
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Twice yellow-red: Eintracht Frankfurt loses in Cologne when they are outnumbered
After the change, the guests played a little more courageously forward and were quickly rewarded relatively quickly when Farès Chaïbi, who came on at the break for Junior Dina Ebimbe, scored what was supposed to be 0-1 (58th).
But the Algerian was clearly offside.
Given the new balance of power, Cologne were allowed to counterattack, and at least did so well in the 63rd minute thanks to their two most agile players, when Thielmann passed the pass sharply, but Nkounkou cleared it in front of Alidou at the last moment.
The door opened for FC when Nkounkou was late against Alidou three minutes later and had to leave the pitch after a clumsy foul.
And straight from the free kick it was 1-0 when Alidou directed Ljubicic's shot into the goal with his shin.
The 22-year-old refrained from celebrating the goal out of respect for his actual employer.
At the beginning of the final phase, Thielmann decided the game before Tuta also left early after another foul.
(ck/dpa)