Football
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Eintracht Frankfurt's Thomas Schaaf set for game 500 as Bundesliga coach

Thomas Schaaf is set for his 500th match as a Bundesliga coach when his Eintracht Frankfurt side host Schalke on Saturday.

The Frankfurt boss will become the fifth coach in the league's history to reach the landmark, and is set to follow in the footsteps of Otto Rehhagel (832 games from 1974 to 2012), Jupp Heynckes (642 from 1979 to 2013), Erich Ribbeck (569 from 1968 to 1996) and the late Udo Lattek (522 from 1970 to 2000).

The 53-year-old made his Bundesliga debut as a coach on May 11, 1999 when Werder Bremen -- the club he spent his entire career at until his departure in 2013 -- beat Schalke 1-0 at the Weserstadion.

Nearly 16 years on and Schaaf is hoping to secure a 230th Bundlesliga win in his 500th match.

"Five hundred games -- that's a huge number which shows that I have been around for some time and have experienced a bit. But the result on Saturday is more important to me," he told his prematch news conference.

Rehhagel, who managed Schaaf at Bremen, told kicker that he did not see a future coach in him at first, "but the older he got, the more he got interested in it."

Also in kicker, Heynckes named Schaaf "one of the top coaches in the Bundesliga" and "a great colleague," while Ribbeck highlighted that his success at Frankfurt showed he can coach everywhere and not only at Bremen, as it had been suggested before he joined the Eagles last summer.

Schaaf won one Bundesliga title and three DFB-Pokals with Bremen, while he took the club to the 2009 UEFA Cup final, which they lost against Shakhtar Donetsk.

He also won two Bundesliga titles as a player for Bremen, as well as two DFB-Pokals and the 1992 European Cup Winners' Cup. Schaaf has taken part in more than 750 league games as a player and coach.

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