An emphatic result feels as if it should be a definitive, a full stop either positively or negatively. Eintracht Frankfurt will have sore heads and aching pride after Sunday’s humbling at Bayer Leverkusen – “a dark day,” in the words of their coach Adi Hütter but no die has yet been cast midway through a week that had shaped up to be a defining one for the Bundesliga’s big overachievers this season.

Sat in the middle of an intensely-demanding two-legged Europa League semi-final with Chelsea, an opportunity to all but finish the chances of a direct rival for the fourth Champions League place loomed large, but it was just too much for them. It started badly and by the time Martin Hinteregger headed the ball into his own net under little pressure, it was 6-1 to Leverkusen – in the 36th minute. “It was also 6-1 at the final whistle,” wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine’s Roland Zorn, “because the still clearly superior Leverkusen had just finished what was a respectable training session.” During that first-half flurry, it could have been worse for Eintracht.

Hütter made four changes to the team which gave everything in the first leg against Chelsea on Thursday, and none of them worked. By the second half the coach, so strongly associated with brave decision-making since his arrival last summer, had thought better of it and, as if panicked by the horror unfolding in front of his eyes, made changes that some would view as foolhardy. In the immediate aftermath of Leverkusen’s sixth goal, he sent on the rested pair of Mijat Gacinović and star striker Luka Jović. To what end, with the game gone, is open to question.

Maybe, in Hütter’s view, preventing a thrashing from becoming a cricket score was a useful prize in view of Thursday’s second leg in west London. The Austrian has authored enough feats of excellence in his debut season in Frankfurt to be given the benefit of the doubt and the now-familiar hordes of Eintracht fans - Sunday’s travelling band of 3,000-plus, who loudly lauded their team even at the end of an arduous afternoon, were as remarkable in their own way as the full-to-the-brim Commerzbank Arena which wowed the continent on Thursday against Chelsea – but it felt as if the pressure was getting to him as much as to his players. A coach known for his certainty appeared caught between two stools.

Frankfurt were losing 6-1 after 38 minutes. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

If Eintracht were tentative then their hosts were ravenous, they played in “a frenzy” (as Zorn described it), and reminded us exactly what a Peter Bosz side can look like when the stars align. We can argue that there is less residual pressure on the Dutchman at Leverkusen, that the general dynamic of the players correlates well with his ideals, and that the hiccups of rivals – and long-term conditions of other potential competitors – are coming together to line the way as they didn’t in his initially-promising spell at Borussia Dortmund.

It is also fair to point out that Bosz has Kai Havertz, the team’s remarkably dominant midfielder. He is now 15 goals into a season in which he has increasingly looked like an adult playing with children, and he doesn’t even turn 20 until June. Havertz got the ball rolling in the second minute with a devilish finish to a flowing move and once knocked over, he and the simmering Charles Aranguíz in midfield never suggested for a second they would let Eintracht get up again. If Leverkusen do make it into the top four, the Champions League will be lucky to have Havertz.

For Eintracht, sporting director Fredi Bobic tried to bring some calm back into the lungs. “One mustn’t forget that this is only our second defeat of the second half of the season,” he pointed out. “It means nothing for Thursday.” Given that Rückrunde collapses heavily conditioned the Bundesliga finishes in the last two seasons under Niko Kovač (nothwithstanding their stellar performances in the DfB Pokal, especially last term), it’s a not-insignificant detail.

Yet this had been coming. OK, maybe not this, but something. Hütter’s team have looked weary for a few weeks, notably in the home defeat by Augsburg and though their formidable home arena lifted them significantly for those last two European ties against Benfica and Chelsea, you wonder how much is left. They are still in the Chelsea tie, just like they are still in the Champions League race – fourth place is still theirs, for now, on goal difference, though a trip to Bayern on the season’s final day lies in wait.

Eintracht are, however, hanging on by their fingernails. Footballing romantics in Germany and beyond will hope they can cling on to the bitter end.

Talking points

• This will almost certainly be looked back upon as the weekend in which the title was decided, though Dortmund will be asking themselves for months how they managed not to keep it going until the end. Leading 2-0 and playing superbly at Werder Bremen, they let it slip in the final 20 minutes, following a painfully familiar script It mostly hinged on a huge blunder from Roman Bürki, recovered from a poor 17-18 season to be one of BVB’s standout performers this term, letting a tame shot from Kevin Möhwald through his legs. Bürki was back to his usual role for the equaliser, exposed by his team’s creaky defence as Manuel Akanji unwisely tried to shepherd the ball out with Ludwig Augustinsson taking advantage to set up Claudio Pizarro for the leveller. That BVB are far ahead of where anyone expected at the start of the season is little consolation right now.

• Bayern’s victory on Saturday was large parts of their season in a nutshell, making slightly harder work of clearly inferior opposition than they should have. It was all put into a slightly different light by Sunday’s confirmation that Franck Ribéry will leave the Allianz Arena this summer, with the Frenchman’s late clinching goal in a 3-1 win – the most Ribéry-esque goal you could imagine, running in from the left and stepping inside Waldemar Anton to apply a right-footed finish inside the far post – taking on extra poignancy in the aftermath. The club also announced that Ribéry and Arjen Robben will have a joint farewell match next year.

• Remarkably, Hannover are still not officially relegated following Stuttgart’s 3-1 reverse at Hertha, though the Swabians are highly likely to be in the relegation playoff spot, notwithstanding implosions or, on the other side, mathematical miracles in terms of goal difference. Nico Willig’s side were unhappy that, at 1-0 down, neither referee Daniel Schlager nor VAR officials spotted a handball by Hertha’s Karim Rekik. Dr Jochen Drees, the VAR project leader in Cologne, felt the need to come out and speak for on-duty video assistant Günter Perl.