Eintracht Frankfurt hosts Basel

Eintracht Frankfurt hosts Basel at the Commerzbank-Arena in Frankfurt in a first game from the 1/8-finals of Europa League. Our Europa League predictions are about to follow.

Eintracht Frankfurt aim for another strong Europa League performance. Last season they reached the 1/2-finals and they were actually very close to the final, but they lost the penalty shootout against Chelsea. Now some of the club’s stars are no more there, but Eintracht still have a good enough team to make an impressive run in the tournament.

During the 1/16-finals the Germans impressed with their performance against one of Austria’s best teams – Salzburg. Eintracht won the first leg at home with 4-1, while the second leg in Salzburg ended without a winner – 2-2. This allowed Adi Hutter’s team to progress.

Eintracht’s manager has some players missing before this game. Bas Dost, Gelson Fernandes, Nils Stendera and Marco Russ are all struggling with injuries. We still can’t tell you of some of them could feature against Basel.

What’s happening with Basel? The Swiss giants reached the 1/8-finals after two wins over Cyprus’ APOEL in the previous round. Basel won the first game in Nicosia with 3-0, which was followed by a 1-0 win in Switzerland. It was an easy work for Marcelo Koller’s boys. But now they are having a bigger challenge ahead.

Some might say that Basel are not the force they were years ago, when they were dominating the Swiss Super League. Now times are different, but we think Basel still have a decent team. Just not as good as it was five years ago, for example.

In these Europa League predictions we favour Eintracht Frankfurt to prove they are the better team than Basel. Don’t think it’s going to be easy for the Germans – it won’t, but they are favourites.