Goals from Stefan Lex and Pascal Groß secured an historic home win for Ingolstadt on Saturday afternoon.
Both managers made two changes from their respective side's weekend results. Ralph Hasenhüttl and Ingolstadt opted for Max Christiansen and Moritz Hartmann instead of Alfredo Morales and Stefan Lex, while Armin Veh and Eintracht brought in Carlos Zambrano and Luc Castaignos for the benched David Abraham and Vaclav Kadlec.
Uneventful first-half
It was a fairly quiet beginning to proceedings at the Audi-Sportpark, though there was real concern on Ingolstadt's part when Pascal Groß went down clutching his hamstring with no-one around him. Thankfully for the Schanzer, he was up again after some treatment. They also had a penalty appeal in the opening exchanges, though Mathew Leckie's appeals were in vain.
Ingolstadt were their usual selves, sturdy and staunch in defence and ready to come forward when they got the chance. The trouble was that both teams were cancelling each other out in the middle of the park. A combination of youth and experience in equal measure was preventing the sides from making any effective moves forward.
Ingolstadt begin to look more lively
They made it to the break level pegging, after Alexander Meier couldn't quite control a pass through from midfield. A better touch may have seen him strike the opening blow. The half-time pause gave the teams a break and Ingolstadt time to make a chance, as Romain Brégerie replaced Roger.
The hosts came out much more determined to make an early impact and they did just that. Benjamin Hübner headed just over from Groß' delivery before Lukas Hradecky made two top stops from Hartmann cut-backs. Once again, the Finn was proving to be a more than adequate replacement for Kevin Trapp.
Frankfurt then had two chances of their own to open the scoring. An Alex Meier volley thundered just over the bar, with the aid of a deflection, in what would have been a quite special strike. The resulting corner found Stefan Aigner in the area and while he beat everyone to the ball, he couldn't control his header and it went well over.
The hosts win it late on
The hosts made the Eagles pay for wasting several chances and scored their first home goal of the season. Appropriately, it was Pascal Groß who scored. He picked the ball up from 20 yards and struck a sweet shot into the near post, kissing the woodwork as it found a way past Hradecky. The Finn was powerless to stop the strike, which had as much power as it did the element of surprise in its favour.
The hosts' patience definitely paid off as they scored late on to secure their first ever Bundesliga win. Stefan Lex stole the ball ahead of Hradecky and slid into an empty net, capping his run of scoring with Ingolstadt from the Regionalliga to the top flight. Frankfurt, however, will be hugely disappointed to have lost out in such a close contest.