BUNDESLIGA boff Lucas Swain-Britton (@LucasSwain95) takes an look at the DFB Pokal final between Bayern Munich and Eintracht Frankfurt
Bayern Munich v Eintracht Frankfurt | Saturday 19th May 2018, 19:00 | BT Sport
It’s the domestic cup final in Germany as Bayern Munich take on Eintracht Frankfurt as the Bavarian giants attempt to get their hands on the double. Whilst Jupp Heynckes and his side would have loved this to have been the Champions League and given their performances against Real Madrid they may be considered hard done by, but costly mistakes will be the downfall of any side in the latter stages of that competition.
Surprisingly Frankfurt are in their second DFB Pokal final in successive seasons. The Eagles lost out to Borussia Dortmund last time courtesy of goals from Ousmane Dembele and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Thomas Tuchel got his hands on the trophy just before he departed the club and Niko Kovac is hoping to do the same.
Auf Wiedersehen
There’s one strong narrative coming from this fixture and it’s ‘goodbye’. Jupp Heynckes, managing the undisputed champions of Germany for the fourth time, is departing yet again and Niko Kovac says Tschuss to a club he’s had fantastic success with given the resources at his disposal.
The Croatian manager is showing fantastic prospects and he’s already been announced as the successor to Heynckes for the 2018/19 season. Kovac has the perfect opportunity to display to the Säber-Straße officials they have selected the correct man for the job by defeating Bayern Munich in this final.
Jerome Boateng, Arjen Robben and Arturo Vidal will miss the final for Bayern, which shall make life difficult for the favourites. They’re going to be keen to avoid the embarrassment from the final game of the season when they lost to Stuttgart 4-1, but rather ironically they will be doing the Swabians a favour by handing them Europa League qualification by winning the final.
The betting angle
Naturally with Bayern Munich playing in any fixture against German opposition, they’re trading at a very short price. The price is extremely short, but I suspect bookies have done this as they expect a lot of accumulator punters to include the German champions in their shopping list-esque bets for the weekend.
With the price considered, I have to take Eintracht Frankfurt’s Asian Handicap here. Whilst I can see Bayern winning by two goals, this won’t be a straightforward game for the champions. I fail to see them winning this by three and the +1.75 handicap is at an attractive enough price to back for Kovac’s final game.
Best Bets
Bayern Munich v Eintracht Frankfurt – Eintracht Frankfurt +1.5, +2.0 Asian Handicap (1.900 bet365)
