Big European Cup evening, big celebrations: Eintracht Frankfurt celebrated an impressive quarter-final win at FC Barcelona.
Photo: imago images/Xavier Bonilla
The Eintracht Frankfurt archive contains a large number of detailed descriptions of the European Cup semi-final in which the Hessian Bundesliga club lost their place in the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup at West Ham United on April 14, 1976. There is talk of a “dramatic and exhausting rain and mud battle”, after which the recently deceased Eintracht captain Jürgen Grabowski should say: “Many a lot of us can still cut a slice from an English football team.”
The German cup winners resisted the English power play for a half before the dam broke in Upton Park in the 3-1 defeat. Eintracht record player Karl-Heinz Körbel, who was called up in midfield because of a broken nose, still remembers that at the time he felt “less than eight ball contacts” because the typical kick and rush “balls like in ping-pong” back and forth over him had flown here. There were times when the clubs still faithfully reproduced the football cultures of their countries.
If you now look at the composition of the semi-finals of the Europa League, you feel transported back half a century. West Ham United, Eintracht Frankfurt and Glasgow Rangers: Three well-known names from the founding days of the European Cup competitions, each of whom have won a European Cup in their eventful history – West Ham 1965, Glasgow Rangers 1972, Eintracht Frankfurt 1980. The opposite pole is Glasgow’s opponent RB Leipzig; a German construct that embodies the strong influence of external financiers.
Nostalgics can enjoy the semifinals between the Londoners of West Ham United and Eintracht Frankfurt (Thursday 9 p.m. / RTL). Just as Frankfurt will not close the gap to Bayern, Dortmund and Leipzig in the foreseeable future, Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea have rushed too far for West Ham. Clubs from the upper middle class – ninth in the Bundesliga and seventh in the Premier League – are rebelling.
Finally the same nouveau riche and super rich don’t get that far, the longing for unpredictability is served again – in the Europa League anarchy still seems possible. Otherwise, the large amount of money, together with a very one-sided distribution mechanism, especially in the Champions League, has meant that there are usually no surprises.
Frankfurt’s board spokesman Axel Hellmann is vehemently in favor of a stronger financial balance between the competitions. “The other alternative is clear. If we don’t do this to a certain extent, we create our own monster. Champions League clubs will generate more and more money, and one day they will try to enter a Super League because that is the only way to meet their economic needs.” To strengthen the interests of the European middle class clubs.«
Because the passion for international football is particularly great here. To the chagrin of Eintracht, the “Hammers” only want to give up 3,000 tickets for the guest contingent and expel any supporter who reveals himself to be an eagle bearer outside the guest block from the London Stadium. “That’s the worst crap,” railed President Peter Fischer in the ZDF sports studio.
West Ham won their last major FA Cup title that year (1980) when Eintracht defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach in the then Bundesliga-dominated Uefa Cup. Frankfurt was only able to achieve the quarter-final sensation with epochal fan support at FC Barcelona because some underestimate the competition and others almost exaggerate its value. The main thing is Europe in Frankfurt: the club and the city are electrified by every international task; Competition and opponents are actually secondary.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board Philip Holzer has extrapolated in the “kicker”: “From our perspective, a semi-final participation in the Europa League is as valuable as entering the Champions League group phase.” The former investment banker looks just as pleased at the Conference League: “If you’re looking at the semi-finals with AS Roma, Olympique Marseille, Leicester City and Feyenoord Rotterdam – that’s pure tradition.”
In one of his many thoughtless moments, Franz Beckenbauer used to call the Uefa Cup the “losers’ cup”. Today, Frankfurt or Leipzig would be jumping for joy if they were the first German club to succeed in the successor competition to the Uefa Cup. There Bundesliga clubs were happy to be eliminated against opponents with far fewer on-board resources. Former league boss Christian Seifert not only once threw the remote control through the living room in anger because an underdog from Norway or Ukraine had once again thumbed his nose at a German representative.
So far, only three Spanish teams (FC Sevilla, Atletico Madrid and FC Villareal), two English teams (FC Chelsea, Manchester United) and one Portuguese representative (FC Porto) are in the list of winners of the Europa League. Werder Bremen 2009 lost in the last Uefa Cup final against the Ukrainian representative Shakhtar Donetsk, who was pumped up with oligarch money. Eintracht Frankfurt was about to reach the final again in 2019, but Chelsea FC won a dramatic penalty shoot-out. It took a long time at Stamford Bridge for the tears of Martin Hinteregger, who had aimed at the center of the goal, to dry. Hellmann is convinced that this won’t happen again: “Next time Hinti just shoots into the left or right corner.”
