Eagles, Foals and a game of 10 goals

When referee Florian Exner blew the whistle after 45 minutes of a one-sided opening half, almost everyone's eyes turned to the stadium scoreboard in disbelief.

Eintracht's players were heading into the break with a 5-0 lead while Gladbach's fans were stunned. 

The Eagles had only twice in their Bundesliga history matched that scoreline at half-time: namely when going 5-0 up after 45 minutes in 1975 against Bayern Munich (final score 6-0) and then in 1977 in Essen (where the end result was 8-1). 

"We wanted to react to [last weekend's 4-3 loss]  against Union Berlin, and we did," said Eagles' head coach Dino Toppmöller after the match, despite his team showing plenty of nerves even when then 6-0 ahead.

For 60 minutes, it was one-way football, with the visitors even taking a 2-0 lead inside the opening quarter of an hour against the flailing Foals. 

The high-flying Türkiye international Can Uzun' was, in particular, unstoppable. The 19-year-old is now the first midfielder in ten years to score five goals after five matchdays of a Bundesliga season. The last player to achieve that feat was Yunus Malli in 2015/16.

Watch: Frankfurt's dashing young star

Uzun is also the first player in Eintracht Frankfurt's distinguished history to score on each of the first five matchdays, putting him ahead of such club greats as Tony Yeboah and Alexander Meier.

What's more, Uzun is the first teenager ever to achieve this feat in the Bundesliga.

"Scoring in five consecutive matchdays is obviously a great thing," the former Nuremberg star said after Saturday's contest. "We played superbly in the first half; it was a lot of fun," he continued. 

Frankfurt coach Toppmöller added, "[Can] is on a really good path; we noticed that in the first few weeks. He wants to keep going, he wants to score goals, and he's hungry. He's invested a lot in his summer preparation, and now it's paying off."

For as well as Eintracht have been doing of late, however, the fact that they were made to face a nervous end to a game in which they had been cruising, was a touch characteristic of this team. 

Gladbach's fightback exposed Die Adlers' occasional lack of organisation and made for an intense ending to a game that, incredibly, finished with that 6-4 scoreline. 

Watch: Eintracht's players celebrate in Gladbach

"The four goals we conceded dampened the mood a bit," Toppmöller admitted. "After all the substitutions, we lost a bit of structure. It was also clear to us that we would rest one or two players for Tuesday [and the UEFA Champions League trip to face Atlético de Madrid] if the opportunity arose."

Having the luxury of bringing off several key players may ultimately end up paying off for the Eagles in the Spanish capital this week, especially given the quality of opponents they are meeting. Atlético downed their cross-town rivals Real Madrid by 5-2 while Eintracht were taking Gladbach apart.  

"We're really looking forward to the week ahead," one of Saturday's scorers, Ansgar Knauff, enthused. "We have a tough game in Madrid.

The atmosphere will be fantastic and we'll do everything we can to win something," the 23-year-old continued.

"Then we face Bayern Munich [next Saturday]; it's going to be a fantastic week: that's why we play football!," Knauff concluded after a memorable evening in North Rhine-Westphalia.