Preview: Spurs meet Eintracht Frankfurt in Europa League last eight

They stuttered along the way and they were playing arguably the worst team in the history of top flight English football, but Tottenham Hotspur WON A FOOTBALL MATCH against Southampton last weekend. It was only their fifth league win from their last 19, going back to November. After elimination from both domestic cups in the space of five January days and with them still 14th in the Premier League, the only realistic chance of Ange Postecoglou still being with the club by the summer would seem to be winning this competition, which would put them into next season’s Champions League. No pressure, Ange. But then, Eintracht Frankfurt haven’t been impressive recently either. They’ve lost four of their last six Bundesliga matches, though they do remain third, behind Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen.
Europa League pedigree
These two have met in European competition twice before. In 1981/82, Spurs won 3-2 on aggregate in the Third Round of the European Cup Winners Cup, while they also met in the 2021/22 Champions League, drawing 0-0 in Frankfurt before Spurs won the return match 3-2 at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. These two have also each won this competition twice before; Spurs in 1972 and 1984, and Eintracht Frankfurt in 1980 and as recently as 2022, when they beat Rangers in the final.
Key players
This hasn’t been an especially brilliant season for many Spurs players, but one who’s coming of age is Brennan Johnson, who’s scored 16 this season in all competitions. He’s now their top scorer in both the Premier League and the Europa League.
The main goalscoring threat for Eintracht Frankfurt is Hugo Ekitike, who signed on loan from PSG last season before making his transfer permanent last summer. He’s scored 19 in 40 in all competitions so far this season.
Team News
Spurs remain without Radu Drăgușin, Dejan Kulusevski and Kevin Danso. Drăgușin will be missing for the remainder of the season, and while Kulusevski and Danso could return for the second leg in Frankfurt next week, though it’s touch and go and they may well be held back for the following weekend’s match against Nottingham Forest. Richarlison is understood to be close to returning, but this hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Eintracht Frankfurt have a fairly substantial injury list at the moment, but their big current concern will be the absence of experienced goalkeeper Kevin Trapp. He should be available for the second leg, but his experience – he has 9 caps for the Germany national team – will surely be missed.
Prediction
It’s Spurs, so there’s always going to be some degree of fatalism in the air, but Eintracht Frankfurt haven’t been in stellar form themselves of late and were eliminated in the first knockout stage of last year’s Europa Conference League. In line with their previous European meetings, I’ll go large on this one with a 3-2 win for Spurs, setting up a tight second leg in Germany next week.
(Cover image from IMAGO)