It was short, but oh so sweet. For 19 hours following their 2-0 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach on Friday, Eintracht Frankfurt were second in the Bundesliga, with just Bayern Munich ahead of them. It wouldn’t last, of course, with Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke and the other riders in a sub-champion field still to play, but Die Adler were determined to make the most of their “one-night stand”, as sporting director Fredi Bobic put it after.

“I said before the game,” Bobic continued, “that if we win, we have to take a picture and frame it.” Maybe, in a season where no credible challenger to Bayern has emerged – Jupp Heynckes’s side remain 16 points clear after their 5-2 win over Hoffenheim – that photo might quickly become superfluous. While Leverkusen and Schalke’s burgeoning resurrections under new coaches have been widely celebrated in rare seasons without the distraction of European competition, Niko Kovac has quietly compiled a very competitive side who, it appears after Friday’s win, have no intention of repeating last season’s mistakes.

Eintracht needed to prove a point in this game, and they did just that. Last week’s win at Wolfsburg had been stylish and entertaining – even if the internet boiled the match down to Max Arnold’s mind-bending free-kick for the home side – but didn’t tell us much about them that we didn’t know. On the road, only Bayern have collected more points (22 to Eintracht’s 21), but conversely only the bottom three have taken fewer on home turf than Kovac’s side. This was a good start to redressing the balance.

They had their luck too against Gladbach. Kevin-Prince Boateng, to some extent representative of Bobic and Kovac’s make-do-and-mend transfer policy, had a central role, tucking in the opener from the excellent Timothy Chandler’s cross and then conceding a second-half penalty, fairly unluckily, for a challenge on Lars Stindl. Boateng and company were reprieved when Thorgan Hazard, in his 100th Bundesliga appearance, rattled his kick off the crossbar.

It felt pivotal, though. This post-winter break restart to the season is exactly what Eintracht needed to rebuff their doubters. After all, they were fourth at Christmas last year, only to plummet in the second half of the campaign. Even if they were clearly distracted by their run in the DfB Pokal, eventually losing the final to Borussia Dortmund after a gallant display, that couldn’t completely explain away Kovac’s team compiling the lowest point total of any team in 2016-17’s Rückrunde (13 in the last 17 games).

Niko Kovac gives Kevin-Prince Boateng an instruction. Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Had Kovac carried that much into this campaign, then he would probably have been looking for a new job and Eintracht would have been looking more like Cologne than Cologne, the last few weeks’ improvement at Effzeh notwithstanding. Things didn’t look too clever at the beginning of the season, with one point taken from (and no goals scored in) the opening two games.

Call 30-year-old Boateng what you want – an opportunist signing, a loose cannon who is working out for now, or a heaven-sent slice of luck – but after suddenly leaving Las Palmas and finding a space in Frankfurt after the pivotal Marco Fabián’s injury had left Eintracht in the mire, he has been a major catalyst for the upswing, involved and positive. It was his winner at Gladbach in the reverse fixture in the third game of the season that got the ball rolling for the team.

What Eintracht have developed into since is something with the potential to be pretty special. Kovac employs a 3-5-2 with unlikely heroes all over the pitch, from the veteran Makoto Hasebe in the back three to wing-backs Marius Wolf – a standout this season – and the fit-again Chandler. Up front, the summer signing Sébastien Haller is steadily proving wrong those back home in France who doubted his pedigree.

It’s a system shot through with dynamism and stamina. There are few harder-working teams in the Bundesliga, and young Luka Jovic’s neatly-finished clincher was the fifth time that Eintracht have scored in the last five minutes of a game this season to decisive effect.

Off the field, it feels as if Eintracht are solid as well. Long-serving president Peter Fischer, in situ since 2000, was re-elected at the club’s AGM on Sunday, with 99% of the votes, meaning he is set to see the job through until at least 2022. His address was, as expected, heavily referential of a December interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in which he nailed his and the club’s colours in denouncing the far-right party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) as “incompatible” with Eintracht’s values.

“It is our diversity and internationality that makes Eintracht what it is,” Fischer told the meeting at Wolfgang-Steubing-Halle, to loud applause. City mayor Peter Feldmann followed Fischer in speaking and called the club “a pillar of integration” for Frankfurt. It is something that Boateng, a long-term flag-bearer for overcoming prejudice, has continually manifested.

Kovac also accepted a lifetime membership of the club and donned a black-and-white scarf, to another big reception from the meeting’s attendees. That wasn’t just on the back of this weekend. “Regardless of whether Eintracht is now second, third or fifth,” wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine on Saturday, “Kovac’s team is a serious Europa League candidate.” It feels like the striving for high standards, on and off the pitch, is sustainable, whatever Bobic’s throwaway joke might have implied.



Talking points

• Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was pressed into action – or something resembling that, anyway – for Dortmund against Freiburg as he counts down his final days at the club. His 29 touches, a far-from-uncommon sample of his contribution outside scoring in the last year, were far from the biggest contribution by a striker at Westfalen on Saturday, but Nils Petersen’s double (the second a goal-of-the-season contender) didn’t give the visitors the win as Jeremy Toljan’s last-ditch goal earned BVB a third straight draw.

Bayern Munich’s Arturo Vidal challenges for the ball. Photograph: Michaela Rehle/Reuters

• Not only are Bayern 16 clear, but they seem to be subversively mocking the competition. They went 2-0 down inside 12 minutes to Hoffenheim before roaring back, finished the game off with Sandro Wagner’s first goal since he left his former club (which went in off his thigh) and Bayern even owned the opposition’s best player, the on-loan Serge Gnabry. Impressive.

• Another one for the Leon Bailey highlights reels as he, and Leverkusen, went back into second, breaking the deadlock against Mainz with a left-foot rip-snorter from range. He should stay in the winter window, but don’t bet your last euro on him being at the BayArena in August.

What.A.Goal.



20-year-old Leon Bailey simply can't stop producing quality and he was at it again today 🙌 pic.twitter.com/4BuNEFvuet — Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) January 28, 2018

• Schalke had occupied second place having won at Stuttgart on Saturday, again inspired by the brilliant Amine Harit. VfB’s sixth reverse in seven led them to (somewhat rashly, in this column’s opinion) fire coach Hannes Wolf, who got them promoted – and with plenty of credit at Dortmund, his former club, Wolf could yet emerge as a surprise contender for the BVB post in summer should Julian Nagelsmann be unavailable.