Stuttgart and Eintracht engage in a heated battle. After a dream start and falling behind shortly before the end, the visitors come back – but ultimately lose 2-3.

VfB Stuttgart has once again made its mark in the battle for the Champions League. Three days after their exhilarating 4-1 win at Bayer Leverkusen, coach Sebastian Hoeneß’s team defeated another direct rival in Eintracht Frankfurt: After the Swabians’ 3-2 (2-1) win, the two clubs are now separated by six points, with the visitors, who are busy in the Champions League, slipping out of the European Cup places.

Frankfurt took the lead through Rasmus Kristensen (5th minute) and played well. After a serious mistake by goalkeeper Kauã Santos, returnee Ermedin Demirovic (27th minute) and Deniz Undav (35th minute) turned the game around within nine minutes. VfB then dominated, creating numerous chances – but they were also lucky that Ansgar Knauff’s powerful shot only hit the crossbar (58th minute).

Then former RWE youth player Ayoube Amaimouni-Echghouyab (80′) equalized with his first Bundesliga goal, but Nikolas Terkelsen Nartey (87′) secured the win for Stuttgart shortly before the end. VfB keeper Alexander Nübel made several saves to secure the three points.

Demirovic, who had already made a brief appearance in Leverkusen after recovering from a foot injury, started for the first time since October 6. His goal came when the ball fell at his feet after Kauã Santos, who was virtually unmarked, failed to hold onto a cross from Maximilian Mittelstädt.

Eintracht had to do without the injured Can Uzun and the ill Hugo Larsson and Nene Brown, but still took the lead. After a corner from Ritsu Doan, Kristensen won the header and the ball flew high over the helpless goalkeeper Alexander Nübel and into the net.

“We have to win the one-on-one duels,” Frankfurt coach Dino Toppmöller had demanded before the game. That worked very well at first, but became increasingly rare after the equalizer. Stuttgart, who initially had problems building up play, really turned up the heat: Undav cut inside from the right in the penalty area and his shot was deflected into the goal by Ellyes Skhiri.

Eintracht were barely present in attack at times, but had to do without striker Younes Ebnoutalib from the 20th minute onwards: the winter signing appeared to have seriously injured his right knee after a (fair) tackle with Jeff Chabot after a quarter of an hour.

Frankfurt’s best chance to equalize came when Knauff hit the crossbar, but otherwise Stuttgart were closer to scoring a third goal than Eintracht were to scoring a second: Chabot only hit the side netting (44′), Chris Führich (58′) shot just wide, as did Undav (60′), who also failed to beat Kauã Santos in a one-on-one situation (65′).