Olympique Lyon vs. Eintracht Frankfurt preview: Team news and predicted lineups
| SGE striker Hugo Ekitiké consoles keeper Kevin Trapp during Saturday's league draw with Augsburg. | Alex Grimm, Getty Images |
A loss against Leipzig in the Pokal and a league draw against Augsburg over the weekend have knocked Hessen's RheinMainAdler off their lofty perch. Many considered Dino Toppmöller's SGE dark horse title-race contenders until the last two fixtures. Eintracht look to get back on track, regaining the form that enabled them to win seven matches on-the-bounce prior to the Pokal mishap against Leipzig.
Frankfurt's strong form in this year's UEL have them entering this match in third place in the table. A win here will surely prove sufficient to clinch a place in the Europa League knockouts in the coming calendar year. Lyon are nevertheless no slouches themselves in this competition, in seventh place after beating Olympiakos, Glasgow Rangers, and Qarabag Agdam.
Pierre Sage's Lyon have only lost once in their last nine fixtures on-the-spin, merely dropping a UEL group stage match against Besiktas in late October. In their most recent meeting with a Bundesliga side, L'OL created plenty of headaches for Pellegrino Matarazzo's Hoffenheim in a 2-2 draw in early November. The round four Europa League fixture would prove to Matarazzo's penultimate match in charge.
Several of Frankfurt's French star players prepare to return to their home turf. Hugo Ekitiké, Niels Nkounkou, Ellyes Skhiri, and Jean-Matteo Bahoya could all feature in the starting XI. Lyon-born Fares Chaibi - after struggling with form issues earlier this year - has been gaining more trust and playing time under Toppmöller as of late.
Ekitiké - whilst representing Stade Reims in December of 2021 - scored a dramatic late winner against Lyon in the Parc Olympique Lyonnais. Toppmöller made certain to bring this factoid up at his Wednesday pre-match press conference, noting that it would "make for a nice story" if the 22-year-old could replicate the feat.
