Some mild good news if you’re a Tottenham Hotspur fan already angsting about Spurs playing Eintracht Frankfurt this Thursday in the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinals. A football journalist in Germany has reported that Frankfurt’s starting keeper, Kevin Trapp, is out with a knock for the first leg, and expects to be back between the sticks in time for the return leg in Germany next week. He will be replaced by backup keeper Jens Grahl.
Kevin Trapp is also out for the Europa League first leg at Tottenham. UEFA officially nominated Grahl for the #Eintracht-leg squad, replacing Trapp. This measure initially only applies to the first leg. Trapp is expected to replace Grahl in the squad for the return leg.
Now, I’m not going to sit here and try and tell you anything about Kevin Trapp or Jens Grahl — I don’t know anything about either of them! But while we as fans should never celebrate opposition team injuries, it does feel like a team not having their starting keeper for an important match is at least notionally a good thing for Spurs’ prospects. Regardless, there are 10 other players on that pitch and they’ll need to put in a very good performance no matter what else happens.
Unlike in the Round of 16, this time Tottenham play the home leg first before traveling to Germany for the second leg. That’s not my preferred order, of course, and it puts even more pressure on Spurs to get a solid result at home so they can hopefully hang on in a pressure cooker situation in Frankfurt next week.