Niko Kovac arrives at Borussia Dortmund with three Bundesliga coaching stops behind him: Eintracht Frankfurt, Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg. The assignments brought sharply different results, but Frankfurt remains the defining early chapter of his top-flight career.
Kovac took charge of Eintracht on 8 March 2016 with the club facing relegation danger. He kept Frankfurt in the Bundesliga, then built a side that completed an unlikely DFB-Pokal run two years later. Eintracht beat Bayern Munich 3-1 in the 2018 final, ending Kovac’s spell with the club on 30 June 2018 and securing his lasting standing in the city.
The change was felt quickly inside the club, with a new direction taking hold under Kovac. His Frankfurt work moved from survival football to a cup-winning finish, before later Bundesliga jobs in Munich and Wolfsburg followed on the route to Dortmund.
