Union Berlin’s Timo Baumgartl (right) couldn’t hold on to Frankfurt striker Randal Kolo Muani on Saturday.
Photo: imago/Kessler sports photography
The storming legend of Eintracht Frankfurt is still omnipresent on the black and white walls of the arena. Anthony Yeboah, who literally took the Bundesliga by storm in the 1990s, is depicted in several places in the home stadium. One who simply overran his opponents back then. Older fans are more often reminded of the sequences from the former forest stadium with the exceptional attacker from Ghana. With Randal Kolo Muani, the Hessians are again offering a centre-forward who is often simply unstoppable, as the home win against the previously unbeaten leaders Union Berlin (2-0) on Saturday impressively demonstrated.
In the Champions League home game against Tottenham Hotspur this Tuesday (9 p.m.), Eintracht’s opponents appear bigger, but if anyone has the ability to make a difference, then it’s the 23-year-old Frenchman with Congolese roots. The direct comparison against Tottenham’s star squad around national striker Harry Kane is appealing. France’s hopeful striker, who recently made his debut under world champion coach Didier Deschamps, against England’s record goalscorer – that’s something in the Frankfurt city forest, where not only Eintracht’s right winger Ansgar Knauff expects “a magical night” again.
Coach Oliver Glasner and sports director Markus Krösche have long been similar in their praise for their number nine, although both are said to hardly speak to each other anymore. ‘When he’s up front with us, he has the greatest impact. He should just play freely, «explains Glasner. “He settled in well, is physically strong, very agile, and you can see the speed he brings,” explains Krösche.
One has become a league attraction in no time at all. With the Frankfurters, he is already the all-rounder and all-rounder. Maybe even the guarantor for a golden October. Across all competitions, Muani has two goals and six assists in a dozen competitive games because he is not selfish. More of an altruist who gets at least the same satisfaction from goal preparation.
The fact that someone like that was able to switch from FC Nantes to the Europa League winners for free in the summer had a lot to do with Krösche’s predecessor Fredi Bobic, during whose tenure the sports director responsible for scouting, Ben Manga, had dealt intensively with the player – and early on got a promise that Muani didn’t break when better offers reached him. Early in the season – now Berlin’s managing director – Bobic said: “The boy can go through the roof.”
Meanwhile in Frankfurt, his tidiness, his modesty, but also his determination are praised. Muani has never made a secret of the fact that he himself would like to play in the Premier League at some point. It was his childhood dream, he once revealed.
The duels against the Spurs – second leg already on October 12th – give him a particularly lucrative stage to advertise himself. He will definitely be rested next week in London: Muani received a yellow-red card for two violent fouls on Saturday and thus a ban for the away game at VfL Bochum; before that he had played dizzy, especially Union defender Timo Baumgartl at times. “Not many strikers in the league have that much speed,” admitted the 26-year-old from Berlin, who, after surviving cancer, only sees himself at “90 percent” of his potential. That’s not enough to capture so much power and will.
Despite his 1.87 meters, Muani is extremely fast and surprisingly supple. A complete package that the footballer, who grew up in the Paris suburb of Bondy, did not immediately notice. He did not go through any of the famous French youth academies, certainly not the time in Clairefontaine that was so formative for France’s star Kylian Mbappé. Also because of a growth-related illness, Muani only came to the youth department of FC Nantes at the age of 16. It even took a detour to the 3rd division at US Boulogne to really take off in professional football.
Difficulties like this gave him a humility that his brother Kevin once described in the newspaper Ouest-France: “Other professional footballers go to Dubai on vacation. He used to go to Villepinte until last year.« In other words, in one of those Parisian suburbs that were the cradle of numerous top athletes who have long since set out into the world.
