Rasmus Kristensen is a clever man who learns from his environment. Before a potential move, he asked his friends and team-mates what he could expect in Frankfurt. These included his pal Jesper Lindström, who played for the Eagles 80 times (“I watched a lot of Eintracht matches thanks to him”, Kristensen says). Then there was Evan Ndicka, who was with Frankfurt between 2018 and 2023 and then alongside Kristensen last season for AS Roma. And then Robin Koch, an Eagle since 2023 and prior to that a team-mate of Kristensen’s at Leeds, with whom he got on very well both on and off the pitch. The Dane spoke to all of them, and they made his decision an easy one. “We had some very good conversations and I could tell that he really wanted to be here,” said Eintracht board member for sport Markus Krösche once the deal was done.
Great group, love the team.
Rasmus Kristensen
His new team-mates have also gone on to convince Kristensen that he made the right choice. “Great group, love the team,” he said a few days after his arrival at his new club. For what could have been his first time in an Eagles jersey (the ‘Eintracht in the region’ friendly in Heusenstamm), the Danish international – he has 21 caps to his name and was part of his country’s EURO squad – was not called upon to play, and was instead given a little more time to settle in. Not that that stopped him from milling with the crowds to sign autographs and pose for countless selfies.
The settling-in part came on the Frankfurt Americas Tour in Louisville, Mexico and New York City. The 27-year-old, who has been given the number 13 shirt, was very soon up-to-speed, saying “Now we’re cooking, now we’re playing football” with a grin after his first session at training camp. “I feel full of running, so now I need to do some ball work, and then I’ll be ready to go.”
Ready to go for the 1.87m defender equates to “strength, power and aggression”. He continued: “I like to move a lot, up and down the pitch. I also maintain my discipline tactically and I’m a better, more mature footballer than I was three or four years ago. I’m looking to help out where I can via my character, my experience and my style of play. I’m Danish, which means I always give it everything I’ve got.”
Kristensen cut his teeth as a hard-running defender in the Danish region of Midtjylland. He was born in Brande and joined local club Brande IF as a six-year-old, before moving to FC Midtjylland’s youth academy.
Nine trophies in five different leagues
It only took him four years with the club to make his first-team debut, on 7 March 2016 against Nordsjaelland, when he featured for 52 minutes. The following week against Hobro in the league, he played the entire game.
In January 2018, he moved abroad and has gone on to play a combined 281 matches in five professional leagues, for Midtjylland, Ajax, Salzburg, Leeds United and Roma, plus another 46 in Europe, including the UEFA Youth League. His trophy cabinet also boasts nine winners’ medals.
One of those successes led to Kristensen investing in a permanent reminder of his achievement. “When we won the league with Ajax, we went off to Barcelona afterwards. There were three of us Danes and we had the idea of getting a Viking tattoo, so we all ended up with one.”
Eintracht can certainly look forward to having a strong, battling defender in their backline from here on in.
Welcome to Frankfurt, Rasmus!
