Eintracht started with a rather attacking line up, with Brazilian midfielder Caio from the start, Amanatidis and Altintop up front, Benny Koehler stepped a bit back and played in left defense instead of Tzavellas. Faehrmann replaced the injured number one Nikolov in goal. The game against a strong HSV squad with a tough to play attack including dutch star Ruud van Nistelrooy was even and rather calm throughout the first half. The first bigger chance was a Pitroipa shot which went just over the bar of the Eintracht goal (23’). Caio had a good game and also shot wide in minute 34. Four minutes later the crowd celebrated the first home goal of the season. Altintop who was always involved had a great run down the left wing and set up Amanatidis who passed into the center, Ochs hit home with a deflection – 1-0! Hamburg came back with a Demel chance – and then Alex Meier was through but missed his shot in a one on one with the goalie – that was a major chance to go up 2-0 just before half time.
Hamburg was always a threat though and ‘Van the Man’ Nistelrooy had various shots and came close to scoring when he hit the ball just over the bar (51’). Nine minutes later – just when Eintracht seemed to pick up the game – Joris Mathijsen scored the equalizer with a header after a corner cross. Another nine minutes later Faehrmann had a classy save when he denied van Nistelrooy to add to the Hamburg score line. Eintracht kept trying their luck and had a big chance to go into the lead again, when Caio hit a long range free kick. HSV keeper Rost couldn’t get hold of it and Amantidis hit the ball just in front of the goal, but it was saved.
Finally van Nistelrooy got his goal. Again after a corner, again with a header he netted in minute 81, a big blow for most of the 51,500 sell out crowd. It was his third goal of the season after his brace on matchday one. Eintracht manager Skibbe tried his luck with a double substitution bringing on youngster Kittel and new signing Gekas for Caio and Meier. But it was again Hamburg with their high quality squad scoring the third, Guerrero who seems to score regularly against Frankfurt gave goalie Faehrmann no chance after a miscontrolled ball of Benny Koehler.
After all it was a slightly unnecessary defeat for Eintracht, who seemed to cope well with the strong Hamburg team for most of the game. But while Meier and Amanatidis missed their great chances, van Nistelrooy and Guerrero didn’t. And that was the difference on this rainy afternoon.
