Eintracht Frankfurt and Augsburg met at Deutsche Bank Park in the second round of the Bundesliga, and the visitors left with a 4-1 victory. The result moves Augsburg to the top of the table with six points from two games, while Frankfurt remain in thirteenth place on two points after a draw and a defeat.
Frankfurt started brighter and took the lead through Jonathan Burkardt in the sixth minute. They kept knocking on the door for a while, but Augsburg held firm until the break. To be fair, the hosts paid for a sloppy opening when Elias Niklas Baum turned the ball into his own net on the hour of the half, and Robin Fellhauer made it 1-2 in the next minute.
The second half opened with Frankfurt pushing forward, but Augsburg struck again. Alexis Claude-Maurice put the visitors ahead 1-3 in the sixty-fifth minute, and Fabian Rieder sealed it late on with an eighty-ninth-minute goal. We had given an away win at 44 per cent confidence, and the prediction came true — Augsburg were clinical when it mattered.
Frankfurt dominated possession at 60 per cent and created 1.87 expected goals, but they had to wait for a breakthrough. The hosts took sixteen shots, eight on target, yet could only find the net once. Augsburg kept their shots on target at 41 per cent and converted their chances, with 1.29 expected goals on the board.
There were several changes as the game unfolded. Frankfurt brought on Mario Götze, Can Yilmaz Uzun, and Elias Niklas Baum in the sixty-ninth minute, while Augsburg added Michael Gregoritsch and Marius Wolf shortly after. Calvin Marc Brackelmann and Ritsu Doan also came on for the hosts in the closing stages.
The result means Augsburg have hit the ground running at the top of the table, while Frankfurt will need to regroup quickly. By then, the gap between first and thirteenth could widen further if the hosts cannot find consistency.
