Draw with Vitesse

After an intensive week of seven training sessions in the Austrian town of Windischgarsten, Eintracht played their fourth friendly of their summer preparations when they took on Dutch top-flight outfit Vitesse Arnhem on Friday. 

Positive start

Head coach Dino Toppmöller sent out a strong first XI, including Kevin Trapp, Mario Götze, Ellyes Skhiri and Randal Kolo Muani, and the Eagles went on the front foot early on. They got forward with pace and purpose, producing some eye-catching one-touch football on several occasions, with a killer pass all that was lacking.

That all changed shortly before the interval when Willian Pacho won possession in the middle of the pitch and strode forward, passing to Jens Petter Hauge. He found Philipp Max wide on the left before darting into the box to collect the return pass and guide a skilful finish into the far corner from 10 yards out.

 

Chances go begging

Toppmöller made a handful of substitutions at half-time, but it did little to interrupt Eintracht’s flow. In fact, summer signing Omar Marmoush quickly made his presence felt, twice firing narrowly off target in the opening minutes. Jesper Lindström almost teed up a second goal for the Eagles after a jinking run down the left, but his pass for Jessic Ngankam was just too strong for the summer arrival to prod over the line.

There had been little to see by way of an attacking threat from Vitesse until that point, but they nevertheless pulled level after winning a free-kick on the edge of the penalty area, which Maximilian Wittek curled over the wall and into the top corner. Eintracht looked the more likely side to score again, with Marmoush, Paxten Aaronson and Ngankam all going close, but there were to be no more goals in an entertaining game. Toppmöller’s side are next in action on Saturday 5 August against Nottingham Forest at Deutsche Bank Park.

Head coach Dino Toppmöller: “I’m very pleased with the way we played. We focused a lot on our defending during the training camp. I think it looked good. Apart from the goal we conceded from a free-kick, we didn’t give our opponents any chances. We created a couple of good situations going forward, but we still need to work on our chance conversion. Ordinarily, we should have won this game 3-0 or 4-0.”