European showdown

Oliver Glasner will have to reorganise his defence for the important home match against Olympique de Marseille. As well as the injured Makoto Hasebe, Tuta will also be absent following his sending off in the away match against Tottenham.

While Kristijan Jakic has been ably filling in at centre-back lately, Hrvoje Smolcic also made his first start for the club in the DFB Cup last Tuesday. The Croatian pair already lined up alongside Evan Ndicka in the latter stages of the narrow defeat in North London. Whether head coach Glasner follows up his hint of playing the left-footed defender on the right of the back three will perhaps be revealed at the press conference on Tuesday at 13:30 CEST.

An October of contrasts

The Eagles picked up just one point from the two games against Tottenham, but on the domestic front, they have won three of their four Bundesliga games this month. Marseille on the other hand beat Sporting Clube de Portugal twice in Europe (4-1 and 2-0) but have lost their last three Ligue 1 encounters, including a 1-0 defeat to surprise package RC Lens on Saturday.

The situation for Eintracht is as simple as it is precarious. If the Eagles win at home, they will have their fate in their own hands going into the final group game in Lisbon. A defeat however would mean the end of their Champions League campaign. In the worst-case scenario, a loss coupled with a Sporting win against Spurs would ensure that Frankfurt finish bottom of the group and their European journey would be completely over for this year. Of course, Eintracht will be doing all they can to avoid that and make it another great European night on Wednesday.