Frankfurt

Christian Eckerlin laughs modestly when asked if he feels he has contributed to Brighton’s success.

Last season, the 39-year-old MMA fighter was brought in by the Premier League club to help with their training for set-pieces.

Eckerlin was a professional footballer in Germany before transitioning to MMA, and says he taught Brighton players “wrestling, head control, hip control, and how to push back against opponents”.

Days before this interview with Eckerlin took place, the Seagulls moved up to third in the Premier League after beating champions and set-piece kings Arsenal 3-0.

Eckerlin is quick to play down the impact of his advice for the Brighton players, but admits his training “opened doors” for them.

“The Premier League is more physical, more aggressive, and they don’t know how to use their body,” Eckerlin told BBC Sport.

“Brighton sent me videos of how they defend, and they did nothing with their hips and arms.

“I taught them first in the weightlifting room, then the pitch, and it worked. This is what I did, I opened doors for them.”

Eckerlin was a professional footballer from 2005 to 2009, playing for SV Darmstadt in the third tier of German football at the peak of his career.

As a youngster, Eckerlin always wanted to play for the team he supports, Eintracht Frankfurt, but believed his dream was over when he left the sport.

Little did he know that MMA, and specifically European promotion Oktagon, would help make his dream of performing there come true.

In 2024, Eckerlin beat fellow German Christian Jungwirth at Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park in front of nearly 60,000 fans in the most-attended MMA event of the year.

On Saturday, Eckerlin returns to the stadium also known as the Waldstadion for a second time to face the Czech Republic’s David Kozma at Oktagon 94 with nearly 60,000 expected once again.

“It was my first dream, when I was in the Waldstadion when I was six or seven with my uncle. It was the dream for me to play there but I thought the fire went out,” says Eckerlin.

“I cannot tell you in words what this means to me. The biggest thing in my career. And now for the second time… crazy.

“I’m at the end of my career, I’m 39, so this is maybe my last fight. There’s no better way to stop fighting in my backyard, you know.”

Frankfurt grapples with a rare malaria outbreak tied to air travel, marking three deaths in recent months.

A third person has died from malaria after a recent cluster of cases linked to Frankfurt Airport, in what German officials have described as an extremely rare air-traffic-related ⁠outbreak of the tropical disease.

In a statement on Thursday, city administration said the person died at Frankfurt hospital and was one of two infected residents living in the Schwanheim district, in the immediate vicinity of the airport.

The two new malaria cases in the neighbourhood had been reported on Tuesday.

“Both individuals ‌had become infected with the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum, even though they had not travelled to a malaria-endemic region and had not worked at the airport,” the statement said.

According to the city’s public health department, the two newly infected people contracted the disease from a mosquito flown into Germany on an aircraft or in luggage.

Six Frankfurt airport workers had contracted malaria tropica, the most dangerous form of the disease, in July, authorities said. Two later died.

Malaria is a potentially life-threatening mosquito-borne disease that is extremely rare in Germany.

The malaria parasite is spread between ⁠humans by some types of mosquitoes, but not through direct human-to-human contact.

Frankfurt Airport operator Fraport said it set up traps to catch ⁠mosquitoes and sent the insects to a laboratory in Antwerp in Belgium in July and August, but ‌results were not available yet.

Health authorities have warned doctors near the airport to consider malaria in patients who come in with a fever.

Airport workers and residents have been urged to seek medical advice in case they display symptoms including fever, chills, headaches, confusion, seizures and breathing difficulties.

An airport spokesperson said local public health authorities had the power ‌in ‌principle to order airlines to disinfect aircraft.