“Defend better and more compactly” | OneFootball

Head coach Albert Riera wants his team be aggressive, intensive and strong in the tackle in Dortmund on Friday evening.

Eintracht Frankfurt visit Borussia Dortmund on Friday 8 May in their final Bundesliga away match of the 2025/26 season (kick-off 20:30 CEST).

At his pre-match press conference, head coach Albert Riera discussed... … team news: “Jens Grahl, Nnamdi Collins and Rasmus Kristensen, who is suspended, are all unavailable. Everyone else is an option for the squad.”

… Eintracht’s negative record in Dortmund: “We’re not looking at statistics, we’re only concentrating on ourselves and what we can control: what we do with and without the ball. This week we’ve talked a lot about what we need to do to stay compact. We didn’t do that well in our last game. We need to understand where we’ve come from and where we want to go.”

… his team’s approach: “We have to play as a team, especially so in Dortmund when we don’t have the ball. We’ll need to be strong at the back, but at the same time we’ll try to make the opposition chase the ball. Having said that, there will also be moments in which we’ll have to suffer.” 

… lessons learned from last weekend: “We’ve talked to each other openly, we’ve been even more honest and direct than before. We told the team that we need our experienced players now more than ever. We’ve got a young group so those with more experience need to lead the way. We’ve spoken to each other in a really honest way. Everyone has their own responsibility. Football is all about momentum. We have to accept the criticism when we don’t win. That’s the only way we can improve. We have two options: either close the door and shout at each other, or find solutions to defend better and more compactly, like we did against Gladbach, Heidenheim and Freiburg. In those games we had a foundation that was strong and hard to break down – as a team.”

… adapting: “There certainly won’t be a revolution. What matters is that every player takes responsibility to win more tackles and to be more aggressive and more intensive. The statistics show that we’re not the best at that. Being aware of that helps us to improve. Our pressing needs to be better than it was against Hamburg. We want to close down lots of space, but that’s difficult to do over the whole pitch. That’s why the focus is on being compact higher up the pitch. We’ve thought about that and it’s up to me to press the right buttons. It’s not so much about tactics as it is about being compact.”