By Callum McFadden at Deutsche Bank Park.
Eintracht Frankfurt 1-1 Werder Bremen
Tuta, 76 Veljkovic, 62
An adrenaline-filled encounter that saw two second-half red cards, ended all square between Eintracht Frankfurt and Werder Bremen at Deutsche Bank Park.
Both sides started the game confidently by playing out from the back from the get-go.
Werder Bremen were the first to come under pressure with such an approach inside the opening ten minutes when centre-back Amos Peiper was caught in possession by Frankfurt winger Ansgar Knauff, who played a pass into the path of an oncoming Philipp Max who could only smash his effort over the bar from the edge of the Bremen box.
The home side claimed for a penalty in the twelfth minute when Eric Ebimbe fell in the box following a challenge by Felix Agu but referee, Robert Hartmann was having none of it and waved away all protests.
Frankfurt continued their early dominance by coming ever so close in the eighteenth minute when Robin Koch floated a ball over the top of the Bremen defence to Omar Marmoush who saw a thunderous volley parried away by Michael Zetterer.
The hosts could easily have gone behind in the twenty-fifth minute if it were not for the brilliance of Kevin Trapp who saved with his feet to deny Jens Stage what looked like a certain goal from close range.
Omar Marmoush came close again for Frankfurt just before halftime when he got on the end of a through ball from Ansgar Knauff but, once again, Michael Zetterer stood strong to deny him and ensure the game was goalless at the break.
Frankfurt started the second half on top which was shown by Bremen making sloppy errors in possession and giving away fouls in dangerous areas.
Just five minutes after the restart, one such free kick from a dangerous position on the right-hand side of the pitch was delivered into the Bremen box by Max only to be headed agonisingly wide by Robin Koch.
Mario Gotze was the next to go close as he headed over the bar from a Philipp Max cross just before the hour mark.
Unfortunately, that miss by the World Cup winner proved more than costly as he gave away a cheap foul on the right side of Bremen in the sixty-first minute that led to the opening goal of the game.
The resulting free kick from the foul was delivered into the Frankfurt box by Marvin Ducksch. His cross was met by the head of Jens Stage who was denied by Kevin Trapp but the German goalkeeper could only parry the ball into the path of Bremen centre-back Milos Veljkovic who hammered the rebound home from close range.
The shock of going behind saw Dino Toppmöller utilise his bench by introducing both Hugo Larsson and Niels Nkounkou to proceedings in the immediate aftermath of the goal.
Those substitutions added fresh impetus to Frankfurt in working to find an equaliser.
Such pressure showed in the Werder Bremen ranks when Jens Stage saw a straight red card in the seventy-third minute for a late challenge on Jean-Matteo Nagoya.
The dismissal was always going to put Werder Bremen under the cosh and it took Frankfurt only three minutes to score a vital equaliser.
Centre-back Niels Nkounkou stood up a cross to the far post that Tuta looped over a helpless Zetterer in the visitor’s goal.
Remarkably, Tuta went from Frankfurt’s goalscoring hero to seeing a straight red card for an awful challenge where he scraped his studs down the heel of Nick Woltemade.
Nine minutes of injury time were added but neither side could find the decisive goal to seal all three points and, so it finished honours even at Deutsche Bank Park.
WFi player of the match: Michael Zetterer (Werder Bremen) – a solid performance from the visiting goalkeeper who denied Markoush on a couple of occasions but could do little for the goal that he did concede.
Eintracht Frankfurt: Trapp, Collins (Larsson, 65), Koch, Pacho, Ebimbe (Bahoya, 57), Tuta, Götze, Max (Nkounkou, 65) Chaibi (Chandler, 83) Knauff (Ferri, 83) Marmoush.
Substitutes: Grahl, Smolcic, Larsson, Bahoya, Hasebe, Chandler, Van de Beek, Nkounko, Ferri
Werder Bremen: Zetterer, Pieper (Malatini, 51) Friedl, Veljkovic, Weiser, Lynen, Agu (Deman, 89), Bittencourt (Groß, 89) Stage, Schmid, Ducksch (Woltemade, 80).
Substitutes: Pavlenka, Deman, Kownacki, Keita, Hansen-Aaroen, Malatini, Woltemade, Opitz, Groß
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