Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 Borussia Dortmund Analysis: No Marmoush, no problem as BVB slump to third successive defeat | OneFootball

After taking his team off to a two-day-retreat on the Baltic coast to clear their minds following Tuesday’s debacle against Holstein Kiel, Borussia Dortmund trainer Nuri Sahin sought to get the 2024/24 German Bundesliga Rückrunde off to a more promising start in a Friday visit to Deutsche Bank park. Sahin’s Borussia Dortmund squared off against the very team they kicked off the season against.

Back in late August, Sahin’s team furnished a largely languid performance at home against Dino Toppmöller’s Eintracht Frankfurt. The Schwarzgelben were nevertheless able to begin the campaign with a 2-0 win courtesy of an electrifying brace from young English talent Jamie Gittens. This time, the scoreline ended up being reversed.

Dortmund have now lost all three of their 2025 league fixtures following this 0-2 away defeat. Frankfurt, by contrast, have begun the new calendar year perfectly with three wins on-the-spin. Champions’ League football slips away from BVB as the team slips to 10th place. Toppmöller’s soaring Hessen Eagles, meanwhile, are guaranteed to finish the weekend third in the table.

Tactical Analysis: Borussia Dortmund

Sahin’s squad found themselves buoyed somewhat by the return of Pascal Groß (suspension) and Waldemar Anton (illness). The new defensive-minded duo dispatched Marcel Sabitzer and Julien Duranville to the bench. Accordingly, the formation shifted from a 4-2-3-1 to a 3-4-3. Sahin ran a similar looking 3-4-3 during his first three fixtures in charge as BVB trainer.

Lineup—BVB—(3-4-3)

From the outset, one could tell that Sahin’s formation was by no means intended to be static. Although the guests clearly played out of the back via a three-man-chain, Ramy Bensebaini and Julian Ryerson appeared to operate under rearward thinking instructions. Emre Can roamed forward with some license on early attacking charges, settling in as an extra defensive midfielder once the ball was played forward. This hybrid system occasionally resembled a 4-3-3 in attack and a 5-4-1 in defence.

A passing error out of the back from Kobel in the second minute nearly led to Eintracht taking the lead. Fortunately, the BVB keeper was on hand to cover for his own mistake with a save on Hugo Larsson after a miscommunication with the back-line led to Kobel passing directly to Ellyes Skhiri. Even though this system did show some offensive promise, it came as no surprise to see the Hessian hosts gradually break the Dortmund defensive ranks down and snatch the lead in the 18th minute.

Shockingly enough, Bensebaini showed absolutely no attentiveness in allowing Rasmus Kristensen to skirt past him on the SGE right. Both Groß and Schlotterbeck were too far away to pick up a mark on the Dane. Instead, Groß, Can, Schlotterbeck, and Anton were all left ball-watching as Hugo Ekitiké (who initiated the play) streaked into the box. The Frenchman coolly and flatly polished off the 1-0 through Anton’s legs. The instability of the shape continued to manifest itself.

Nathaniel Brown and Knauff took advantage of the fluid BVB defensive assignments to create chances via simple inside steps. Ekitiké (off Knauff’s ball in the 34th minute and with a pass in Brown’s direction in the 38th) missed out on a chances to increase the lead. All throughout the opening 45 minutes, Dortmund’s opening tactics looked especially vulnerable on the counter.

Bensebaini’s borderline unforgivable stroll on the Eintracht tally unsurprisingly saw him subbed off at the half. The ever-versatile Julian Ryerson then moved left while substitute Yan Couto took over on the right. Skipper Can slid out of the defensive ranks as Sahin’s crew mostly stuck to a 4-3-3/5-4-1 hybrid in pursuit of an equaliser.

Lineup—BVB—46th minute

Against the Eintracht defensive re-format, this produced very little. Can – to his immense credit – did improve massively on both sides of the ball. The team wasn’t entirely wasteful with all the possession Eintracht accorded them. Couto frequently showed bravery pushing forward and worked in an excellent cross in the 65th. There were other minor positives.

The SGE box simply remained too crowded for both Guirassy and Gittens despite their own clever moves. Ultimately, three more “all in” attack minded subs from Sahin allowed the inevitable to occur. Fresh legged Eintracht subs Oscar Højlund and Can Uzun punished the exhausted Can and Schlotterbeck to make it 2-0 in stoppage time.

Tactical Analysis: Eintracht Frankfurt

Omar Marmoush’s imminent transfer to Manchester City left Toppmöller with one enforced change to make from Tuesday’s 4-1 league win over Freiburg. German youth international (and former BVB academy man) Ansgar Knauff took over for the Egyptian attacker. Though the initial SGE shape certainly remains open to interpretation, this analysis subscribes to the theory that Ekitiké was intended to serve as the lone striker in Marmoush’s stead.

Lineup—SGE—(3-4-3)

As is often the case with Toppmöller’s tactics, the way his midfield tandem is intended to operate can prove difficult to read. Ellyes Skhiri and Hugo Larsson often work a slight split-stagger in a double-six set-up. Sometimes, the Tunisian veteran drifts all the way back to a sweeper role while Larsson works as far ahead as the second attacking axis. In this case, it looked as if Larsson mostly functioned ahead of Skhiri on a loose vertical lock.

The above BVB section already covers how well this functioned against the opposition in the first-half. A significantly more defensive-minded alignment after the restart clearly aimed to both protect the lead and furnish further opportunities on the counter. Robin Koch dropped his inverted pivot placement on the back-line while Kristensen and Nnamdi Collins dropped back.

Lineup—46th minute—(5-4-1)

The RheinMainAdler remained in this set-up even after Sahin refreshed with offensive subs Karim Adeyemi, Maximilian Beier, and Giovanni Reyna. Toppmöller employed only like-for-like changes. Prior to the first of the SGE trainer’s five subs in the 71st, Brown and Knauff were the most active during a series of rolling Eintracht counterattacks on the left.

Oscar Højlund (on for Larsson in the 75th) and Can Uzun (on for Götze in the 87th) made it 2-0 in added time. Højlund initially pressed Can off the ball. Uzun deservedly received an assist credit on Højlund’s tally even though the ball returned to the Danish midfielder’s feet via a somewhat propitious defection off Schlotterbeck.

GGFN | Peter Weis