Miniturnier in Hjørring, Denmark, that’s the name of this football event. But contrary to what the name might suggest, it was of great importance to the four participating women’s football clubs from Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, as the competition featured the first qualifying round for the group stage of the Champions League.
And the anger and disappointment of the favored team Eintracht Frankfurt was correspondingly huge after they unnecessarily and unhappily lost 2-1 to Ajax Amsterdam in the final on Sunday. From the dream of the prestigious premier class before it really gets going in mid-October.
Almost four weeks before the start of the Bundesliga against Bayern Munich on September 16, after two competitive games, that was the maximum possible dampener for the high ambitions of the Frankfurt team. They didn’t even manage to reach the second qualifying round with a play-off two-legged game. In one fell swoop, the spirit of optimism in the team coached by Niko Arnautis vanished.
Huge disillusionment at Eintracht
The disillusionment at Eintracht about the missed opportunity is enormous. Without the momentum from participating in the Champions League with the best 16 European clubs, the Hessians now have to be careful not to fall short of expectations in the Bundesliga as well. Your most lucrative program point of the new round fell away early. This can become a motivation brake.
In 2016, the Frankfurt women were represented in the premier class for the last time, at that time still under the name 1. FFC Frankfurt, which won the premium competition four times and was a fixture in the business. The timing to jump back onto the big stage couldn’t have been better.
Because for the first time in the club’s history, the men have qualified for the Champions League by winning the Europa League. Harmony in a duet: Marketing both teams together in the top segment could have weighed on an attractive added value.
The positive performance of the German national team at the European Championships in England with second place also inspires women’s football here. Now Eintracht is missing the tempting opportunity to make themselves visible to many in Europe with a series of top games in the premier class and to participate in the upswing in the front row. With a proud income of 400,000 euros, the Hessians would have been rewarded for reaching the group stage.
In total, UEFA is paying out 24 million euros to the 16 participants. Eintracht had worked towards the Champions League for a year in the previous season with a strong final sprint and third place. Now she has gambled away her involvement in just one encounter. That makes the frustration of the Frankfurt women huge. The premier class remains an unfulfilled dream for them. In everyday Bundesliga life they will have to show a defiant reaction in order to be able to live up to their high goals in the future.
