The most important thing about Eintracht-Mainz: the feel-good game | hessenschau.de

At the end of the year, Eintracht Frankfurt will meet on Saturday (3:30 p.m./in the live ticker and Audiostream ) in their own stadium against 1. FSV Mainz 05. Despite their recent poor results, the third-placed Hessians are slight favorites in the duel against the seventh-placed team from Rheinhessen. With a home win, Eintracht could consolidate their Champions League position – and enjoy Christmas with a pleasant feeling.

Four games, no win: Eintracht has slipped into an (explainable) anti-run. This is mainly explainable because, on the one hand, she lost against strong opponents and, on the other hand, she simply has a mammoth program under her belt. For comparison: While Mainz have only played 17 games this season, Frankfurt have 24 in the statistics. The Hessians want to use the annual results to consolidate their third place in the table. Should there still be a defeat, Eintracht would most likely still end the first half of the year in a Champions League place.

But Mainz are also playing a strong round and have so far amassed 22 points, their best result in 14 years at this point in the season. Back then, Thomas Tuchel trained the zero fives and scored 30 almost unbelievable points with the outsiders. What also shows the good development of the guests: After 14 match days last season, the FSV was in second-to-last place with nine points. Now the Rheinhessen could possibly climb to a Europa League place with a win.

The year has already ended early for Tuta: The Brazilian is suffering from a muscle injury in his calf and, according to coach Dino Toppmöller, should start training again at the beginning of January. Otherwise, the coach can probably rely on all players.

Mainz are missing their best player, striker Jonathan Burkardt. The two-time national player, who will also be on Eintracht's shopping list next summer, recently sustained a thigh injury against Bayern. Meanwhile, Danny da Costa returned after muscular problems just in time for a showdown with his former club.

This is how Mainz could play: Zentner – Jenz, Bell, Kohr – Caci, Sano, Amiri, Mwene – Nebel, J.-S. Lee – sieve

Dino Topmöller: “It will definitely be a nice challenge to play against this team. It will be very intense, that's what makes this team special. They are very active in the game. They are very hungry for second balls. We definitely want to have this positive finish and from one make a very good first half of the season an outstanding one.”

Bo Henriksen: “But we have defended very well in the last six or seven games and we won't do anything different on Saturday. Marmoush and Ekitiké are very fast, but our back three also have speed. So we won't behave any differently tactically than in the last few weeks.”

In order to take advantage of Omar Marmoush's small gap in performance, I would like to write about another Frankfurt footballer at this point: Can Uzun. While many Eintracht professionals are losing strength and form, the 19-year-old is just getting going. In Leipzig, Toppmöller rewarded the half-forward's good short appearances with his first start in the Bundesliga – and Uzun delivered. As before in Lyon or against Augsburg, he had successful actions and prepared the equalizer nicely. It would therefore not be surprising if Uzun also starts against Mainz – behind leaders Hugo Ekitiké and, of course, Omar Marmoush.

Jae-sung Lee recently stood out among the guests. The midfielder not only scored two goals in the triumph against FC Bayern, but also five goals in total this season. In addition, Lee has always collected at least one scorer point in the last five Bundesliga games. The South Korean is his team's second best in this ranking behind Burkardt. Also important for the Mainz game: Nadiem Amiri, who determines the dynamics in midfield.

The boring numbers speak for the home team: Eintracht has been unbeaten against Mainz for eight league games; there has never been such a long series in the duel between the two neighbors. The FSV didn't even manage to score a goal of their own in the last three guest games in the city forest. In addition, the Frankfurt team are already a force in the Waldstadion, still unbeaten they have scored 14 out of 18 possible points this season.

You can watch the game between Eintracht Frankfurt and FSV Mainz 05 on sportschau.de in the live ticker and in the Audio-Live-Reportage track. The game can be seen on TV on Sky.