The Sync: How Frankfurt and KSC cured my Insomnia

Karl­sruhe and Ein­tra­cht Frank­furt repaid the 80 min­utes of my life (and the 51,000 strong at the Com­merz Bank Arena) that they stole with a scin­til­lat­ing fin­ish. A game that was so bor­ing that it would be offen­sive to com­pare it to the oft-used paint dry­ing sce­nario, erupted into a com­edy of blun­ders in the 80’. But at least a com­edy is enter­tain­ing, unlike the major­ity of the game, where my sui­ci­dal ideation was the most notable feat.

Per­haps the two clubs were just effi­cient, and I shouldn’t be so harsh. After all they com­pacted the game into 10 min­utes, and five moments that mattered.

1. The First Shots on Goal
They came in the 80’ by Gor­litz and 81’ by Car­nell and while not that spec­tac­u­lar, they did wake me.

2. Goal #1
In the 82’, Karl­sruhe had a cor­ner. Bradley Car­nell swung the ball into the near post. Marco Russ treated KSC defender Maik Franz like a set of car keys and lost him in the box. Franz got to the ball and headed it cleanly in for the game win­ning goal.

Or at least that’s how KSC treated it, because they all piled on Franz, their trav­el­ing sup­port started singing Seven Nation Army and they effec­tively shut off.

3. Goal #2
Celozzi’s sole con­tri­bu­tion to this game was a 84’ foul that led to an Inamoto free kick from about 40 meters. Not one to find a tar­get with his free kicks, Inamoto sent it right to Markus Mil­lar who punched the ball lit­er­ally straight down to a com­pletely free and stunned Ben­jamin Kohler. Kohler had spent most of the game giv­ing a clinic on how to get dis­pos­sessed, but nobody was near him as Millar’s blun­der fell to his feet. You could lit­er­ally hear Bruch­ha­gen rip­ping up Funkel’s pink slip as Kohler slot­ted it home.

4. Karlsruhe’s missed oppor­tu­nity
Karl­sruhe hit on a quick counter in the 88’ when Chris­t­ian Timm found a streak­ing Sebas­t­ian Freis free in the left chan­nel. Freis calmly slot­ted the ball past Oka Nikolov and then past the far post. Nikolov, who was poorly posi­tioned and left his near post in dan­ger, wrote a thank you card to Freis and is just wait­ing to find a stamp to mail it.

5. The Late Win­ner
Franz con­ceded a cor­ner in added time. On the ensu­ing in-swinger, the ball ping-ponged to Ama­na­tidis. He was allowed to waltz to the near post where he pro­ceeded to nut­meg Mil­lar for the goal that Funkel described as “I don’t have to clean out my office tonight!”

Tagged as: Freidrich Funkel, Inamoto, Malik Franz