Eintracht started with Tzavellas returning to left defense, Chris was out with muscular problems and Koehler featured next to Schwegler in midfield. Hamburg’s star striker van Nistelrooy was injured, goalkeeper Rost and defender Benjamin were also out and even manager Veh stayed in bed with a flu.
The Eagles had the first chance after a Meier throughball to Gekas who had a couple of tries against goalkeeper Drobny, without luck though. After ten minutes Meier had to be subbed off due to an injury, and Brazil midfielder Caio came on. Two minutes and 23 seconds later he scored after Schwegler had set him up, with a powerful leftfooted shot from long range he left Drobny no chance – 1-0! Eintracht continued to play their fluent attacking football they had shown so brilliantly in the second half last Saturday against Schalke 04. After 20 minutes Altintop delivered a perfect cross to Gekas who scored the second with a header.
Only three minutes later Hamburg got one back when Petric netted from a fast break via Guerrero. It was a highly entertaining cup tie at Commerzbank Arena, the 39,400 saw an open game which benefitted from two teams attacking, and also from some defensive mishaps. Russ had a close range chance to score for Eintracht, Petric hit the post and Ze Roberto the outside of it for Hamburg. Just before half time the Eagles reinstalled the two goal lead when Gekas tapped in a Jung pass from short range.
It took around 15 minutes until the second half got going, in minute 58 Trochowski forced Frankfurt keeper Nikolov to a good save with a shot from just inside the box. Then Petric had a rollercoaster ride within two minutes: first he scored an own goal from a Tzavellas free kick to make it 4-1 to Eintracht (65’). Then he netted his second for his own team from a Trochowski cross, also with a header (66’). The game was still great entertainment. Tzavellas cleared a Guerrero shot off the line, an attempt of Son missed the Eintracht goal by a margin.
With four minutes to go once again Gekas was through in a counter attack and sped into the box where Rincon fouled him – penalty. Gekas wanted his hattrick but after a brief discussion with Altintop the latter stepped up to make it 5-2 from the spot. It was his second cup goal, while he was unlucky so far in the league. With a lot of passion Eintracht advanced to the round of the last 16 on this night to remember. The draw will be on Sunday, the games will be held just before Christmas on December 21st/22nd.
And another Hamburg team is waiting: on Saturday the Eagles will travel to the North of Germany for the Bundesliga game away to FC St. Pauli (15.30h CET, English live text commentary on www.eintracht.de).
