In fact the Eagles had not managed to win in the Commerzbank-Arena for nearly half a year, the last three pointer was on April the 3rd when they beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-2.
Michael Skibbe made one change to the starting line up of the Leverkusen game in midweek: attacking midfielder Caio replaced Patrick Ochs who was out with a second yellow ban. Alexander Meier was still out with thigh problems despite high hopes in the week for his return. Chris started again in defensive midfield and Altintop moved to the right to cover Ochs’ position.
Eintracht started well with around 75% possession of the ball in the first 15 minutes, and as a consequence Theofanis Gekas scored in minute 17 with a header from a Tzavellas corner. It was the Greek's fourth goal of the season, he seems to turn into the goalgetter everyone was hoping for. Caio had a couple of chances with long range shots, Nürnberg’s only first half opportunity came from Julian Schieber (25’). Frankfurt’s defenders did their job and the half time lead was well deserved.
The game changed after the break as the hosts did not keep up their attitude and Nürnberg tried hard to turn it around. Between the 60th and 70th minute roughly Frankfurt was lucky not to concede the equaliser when the FCN hit post and cross bar and Einracht’s Russ and Franz also cleared a couple of shots in the box. Nearly too late the Eagles started again to place some counter attacks, but this time the luck was on their side. After a fine combination via Altintop and Koehler it was Frankfurt captain Chris who scored in the 88th minute to secure all three points.
The 43,100 crowd saw a dirty win of Eintracht, but an important one in order to turn around the bad start to the season. Next Sunday the game away to VfB Stuttgart is coming up (15.30h CET, live commentary on www.eintracht.de).
