Toppmöller lauds Dōan's moment of brilliance: "A fantastic individual effort"

Eintracht Frankfurt ground out a narrow 1-0 win over Mainz in the Rhine-Main derby this evening to the delight of coach Dino Toppmöller. 

“We wanted to maintain our defensive stability after the past few weeks. The first half was tough,” he said in his post-match interview. 

"Mainz has a good defensive structure and they have their moments with their high press. Mainz doesn't give you many opportunities to press.

"They prevent you from getting those chances with all those long balls. Both defensive lines did very well; we held Mainz to just three shots on goal.

"Overall, we didn't play quickly enough before the break, but we improved that in the second half and got Mainz's back line moving. That's when you have the space, which Ritsu exploited.

“It was exactly the moment we needed, a fantastic individual effort. So we're very happy with the win. We wanted this victory more in the second half and it was deserved,” he added. 

The Hessen club's captain Robin Koch also gave his thoughts on the game and praised their defensive resilience today. 

"The most important thing is that we won the game today. We knew Mainz would invest a lot and play a lot of long balls. Our first half wasn't optimal, but we did much better in the second. 

“We want to keep pushing and climb further up the table. We've stabilized defensively and want to make good use of the international break, then we'll continue,” Koch explained.