It gets hard for Kevin Trapp
Eintracht trainer brings her own goalkeeper into ARGE difficulties
Eintracht trainer brings her own goalkeeper into ARGE difficulties
By Till Erdenberger
04/11/2025, 9:44 a.m.
Eintracht Frankfurt has been writing great stories of sporting surprising and unforgettable holidays in recent years. Mostly in the middle of it: Kevin Trapp. The former national goalkeeper has long been a cluble at the Hesse. But chewing could be heralded the end of an era.
Kevin Trapp is an icon at Eintracht Frankfurt. The 378 competitive games contested the 34-year-old for the Hesse, at the height of his skills he let his team fly with outstanding parades to the European League miracle of 2022 when the outsider humiliated the big FC Barcelona in Camp Nou and finally triumphed completely against the Glasgow Rangers. Trapp ensured some of the most lavish holidays that European football has ever seen.
The fact that Eintracht Frankfurt was allowed to play in the Champions League that the top of the table is reliably mixed up has a lot to do with Kevin Trapp. Now it could be that the great era of the Saarlander in the Frankfurt goal comes to an end. Without further holidays, maybe even without a return to the square. Because Trapp is injured and his young representative Kauã Santos is enthusiastic. Eintracht coach Dino Toppmöller is in trouble.
“You don’t see that often”
Against Tottenham Hotspur, the 22-year-old Santos delivered a strong performance again, with numerous parades and prudent goalkeeper game, the Brazilian recorded the 1-1 in the quarter-final first leg of the Europa League. Kevin Trapp, who has been struggling with a shin bone injury for weeks, was only part of the travel entourage privately. Instead of inspiring his teammates with parades and with reliable player openings, the former national goalkeeper was only able to reliably supply his Instagram followers with photos from London. Trapp, the former hero, is no longer untouchable in Frankfurt, a return to the goal is by no means agreed. The goalkeeper question will soon ask itself – and it will “not be easy to answer,” Toppmöller admitted.
After the Tottenham game, Lothar Matthäus raved from the Brazilian, who had changed from Flamengo’s offspring to the Main in 2023: “He played a great game. He held everything that was to be held. What is particularly happy to be a goalkeeper who wants to hold the balls. “He has a great charisma and is very good on the ball. A strong goalkeeper.” In his youth, the goalkeeper played Futsal in his homeland: little ball, small field, a great school that ensured that the 1.96-meter giant was one of the best footballers among the goalkeepers of the Bundesliga.
Toppmöller also evaluates the performance of his young goalkeeper like Matthäus: “He had the baptism of fire in Istanbul (in the group phase – note). Such games are moments that give self -confidence. If you are in goal and show an outstanding performance, you know that you have it in it that you can do that,” said the trainer. “It is like many others with us. We grow with our tasks.”
Slapstick moments in the Bundesliga
There had been different days this season. In the home game against Mainz 05, his fifth Bundesliga deployment, Santos acted for an hour near the ridiculousness. Santos wanted to open the game with a short pass on Ellyes Skhiri, but the Tunisian was so brewed by the Mainz Nadiem Amiri that he produced an arch lamp back towards his own goal in stumbling.
And Kauã Santos did everything wrong in this rather harmless scene: the Brazilian apparently initially appreciated the trajectory of the ball completely wrong, then somehow steered the ball on the crossbar, but from there he crashed into the arm of the goalkeeper and finally landed – to the surprise of most observers on and next to the square. The 0: 3 initiated Santos with a hair -raising false pass in the opening of the player. Afterwards he cried bitter tears in the field.
Toppmöller assured everything long ago. “The boys have total confidence in every keeper because they see the boys in training every day and know what quality they have. At the moment, chewing is the one who can be characterized in the game.” Santos, after Heurelho Gomes (9 games for TSG Hoffenheim), has long since been the second Brazilian goalkeeper in the Bundesliga history. The most open question is now: Can Kevin Trapp distinguish himself again in the game?
