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Eintracht Frankfurt 2026/27 season preview: Transfers, pre-season, predicted lineup & predictions
After a rather underwhelming season in which the team finished 8th, Eintracht Frankfurt will be looking to bounce back and focus on running it back with familiar face Adolf “Adi” Hütter, who previously coached the team to as high as 5th in the Bundesliga back in 2021.
With a busy transfer window and pre-season now behind us, t’s time to break down Eintracht Frankfurt and what we can expect to see from the team in the 2026/27 season!
Transfers
The summer window saw a number of Frankfurt’s key players gutted from the squad, but also some exciting players added to fill in those gaps.
Without a doubt the biggest departure was Nathaniel Brown, who joined home state side Bayern München in a blockbuster €50m move following a standout World Cup performance (1 goal and 1 assist in 3 matches, including an impressive 91% passing accuracy rate). Brown, who contributed 4 goals and 4 assists last season for Frankfurt (as well as having the 2nd most amount of minutes played for the team), will absolutely have his presence missed.
Defenders Aurèle Amenda and Rasmus Kristensen also departed for a combined total of €24m to Coventry City in the Premier League and FC Midtjylland in the Danish Super League respectively. Both players contributed more than 3,000 minutes together for the team last season.
French forward Arnaud Kalimuendo returned to Nottingham Forest following his loan expiration at the end of June. The 24-year-old contributed 6 goals and 1 assist in 19 appearances for Frankfurt last season.
To replace these departures, Frankfurt brought in some exciting new additions.
Two new midfielders have joined Frankfurt in the form of Noël Aséko from Bayern München (€12m fee) and Raphael Onyedika from Club Brugge in Belgium (€9m fee).
Aséko impressed greatly with Hannover 96 on loan from Bayern in the 2. Bundesliga last season, adding 3 goals and 6 assists in 32 appearances. The 20-year-old will be a great addition for both Frankfurt’s present and future, and could potentially use this season to showcase his talent on the big stage.
Onyedika also impressed for Club Brugge last season, especially in the Champions League where he recorded 2 goals and 1 assist in 6 games, including a critical goal and assist against Atletico Madrid in the 1st leg of the Play-off stage to make it 3-3.
In the defense, new signing Otávio will plug in the crucial hole left in the centre-back position, while regular starter Nnamdi Collins remains out with back problems. The Brazilian 20-year-old joins from Portuguese outfit CF Estrela Amadora for €1.5m.
Frankfurt also made some signings for the frontline, including Malik Pimpong for €3.5m from FC Midtjylland and Noel Futkeu from Fürth for €1.3m.
18-year-old Pimpong is an extremely exciting prospect for Frankfurt having scored 20 goals for Midtjylland's U19 side last season. It will be interesting to see his impact (likely off the bench) this season.
Although Futkeu was loaned out to Elversberg for the season, he is a name to keep an eye on for the future as the German striker also had an outstanding 25/26 campaign with 19 goals and 5 assists in 34 games in the 2. Bundesliga. It will be exciting to see him gain some Bundesliga experience and potentially give Frankfurt a lethal option up front in the years to come.
Pre-season
Eintracht Frankfurt had a very busy pre-season tour, having played 8 friendly matches and also their first round Pokal match.
Frankfurt began their pre-season not even a week removed from their last Bundesliga match against Stuttgart, running over local rivals and 6th-division side Rot-Weiß Ffm 7-0. The team stumbled in their next match against 4th-division SV Sandhausen 3-3, with a 1 minute double by Knauff in the 78th and 79th minutes not enough to seal the comeback for Frankfurt as they conceded the equalizer just 5 minutes later.
After a 2 month break, Frankfurt returned with a 7-1 demolition of regional rivals FC Gießen from the 5th division, followed by a relatively simple 3-0 victory over Turkish side Trabzonspor.
Returning to Germany, Mannheim posed a solid challenge to Frankfurt, only overcoming the 3. Liga side 1-0 with a 50th minute match winner from Jonathan Burkardt.
The next match came against recently promoted Premier League side Hull City, who Frankfurt comfortably defeated 2-0. Frankfurt’s final game against domestic opposition came against rivals FSV Frankfurt (who play in the 4th-division Regionalliga Südwest), who they also overcame without much adversity 5-1.
If you have been keeping count, that’s 6 wins and 1 draw for Frankfurt so far, an excellent record considering the level of opposition faced. And then came Brentford.
Brentford, who finished 9th in the Premier League last season, should have at least been a relatively close match. Yet Frankfurt, seemingly still on holiday mode, got crushed in an extremely humiliating 7-0 devastation, conceding 4 goals in just 28 minutes in the 2nd half. Just to remind you, that was the same scoreline that Frankfurt had over Rot-Weiß Ffm, who are 5 divisions below Eintracht. Conversely, both Brentford and Frankfurt play in their respective nation’s top divisions, making this a significantly more unexpected and disastrous result.
Frankfurt shook off this early calamity with an 11-0 belting to cup debutants SC St. Tönis 1911/20 in the first round of the Pokal.
The star player of the pre-season was undoubtedly Burkardt, who netted an outstanding 9 goals (including a hattrick against St. Tönis). Apart from the Brentford match, Frankfurt has mostly shown that they are capable of stacking up against both domestic and continental opposition, a promising sign for this upcoming season.
Predicted starting lineup
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