Eintracht Frankfurt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 08/2017
Full name
Eintracht Frankfurt e.V.
Nicknames
Die Adler (The Eagles),
SGE (Sportgemeinde Eintracht),
Launische Diva (Moody Diva)
Founded
8 March 1899
Ground
Commerzbank-Arena
Capacity
51,500
Chairman
Peter Fischer (club)
Fredi Bobič (plc)
Oliver Frankenbach (plc)
Axel Hellmann (plc)
Manager
Niko Kovač
League
Bundesliga
2016–17
11th
Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. is a German sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse, that is best known for its association football club, currently playing in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system.
The club was founded in 1899 and have won one German championship, four DFB-Pokals and one UEFA Cup.
Since 1925, their stadium has been the Waldstadion, which since 1 July 2005, has been called Commerzbank-Arena for sponsorship reasons.
History
Club origins
The origins of the side go back to a pair of football clubs founded in 1899:
Frankfurter Fußball-Club Viktoria von 1899 - regarded as the "original" football side in the club's history - and Frankfurter Fußball-Club Kickers von 1899.
Both clubs were founding members of the new Nordkreis-Liga in 1909.
These two teams merged in May 1911 to become Frankfurter Fußball Verein (Kickers-Viktoria), an instant success, taking three league titles from 1912 to 1914 in the Nordkreis-Liga and qualifying for the Southern German championship in each of those seasons. In turn, Frankfurter FV joined the gymnastics club Frankfurter Turngemeinde von 1861 to form TuS Eintracht Frankfurt von 1861 in 1920.
Eintracht Frankfurt concord,' and Eintracht X is the equivalent of English X United in the names of sports teams.
Pre-Bundesliga history
Eintracht Frankfurt and under pressure from that sport's governing authority, the gymnasts and footballers went their separate ways again in 1927, as Turngemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt von 1861 and Sportgemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt (FFV) von 1899.
Through the late 1920s and into the 1930s, Eintracht won a handful of local and regional championships, first in the Kreisliga Nordmain, then in the Bezirksliga Main and Bezirksliga Main-Hessen.
Eintracht Frankfurtwhere they were beaten 0:2 by Bayern Munich, who claimed their first ever German championship.
Eintracht Frankfurt under the Third Reich and the club played first division football in the Gauliga Südwest, consistently finishing in the upper half of the table and winning their division in 1938.
Eintracht picked up where they left off after World War II, playing as a solid side in the first division Oberliga Süd and capturing division titles in 1953 and 1959.
Their biggest success came on the heels of that second divisional title as they went on to a 5:3 victory over local rivals Kickers Offenbach to take the 1959 German national title and followed up immediately with an outstanding run in the 1960 European Cup.
Eintracht lost 3:7 to Real Madrid in an exciting final that was widely regarded as one of the best football matches ever played, which included a hat-trick by Alfredo Di Stéfano and four goals by Ferenc Puskás.
Founding member of the Bundesliga
The side continued to play good football and earned themselves a place as one of the original 16 teams selected to play in the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional football league, formed in 1963.
Eintracht played Bundesliga football for 33 seasons, finishing in the top half of the table for the majority of them.
Their best Bundesliga performances were five third-place finishes: they ended just two points back of champion VfB Stuttgart in 1991–92.
The team also narrowly avoided relegation on several occasions.
In 1984, they defeated MSV Duisburg 6:1 on aggregate, and in 1989 they beat 1. FC Saarbrücken 4:1 on aggregate, in two-game playoffs. Eintracht finally slipped and were relegated to 2. Bundesliga for the 1996-97 season.
At the time that they were sent down alongside 1. FC Kaiserslautern, these teams were two of only four sides that had been in the Bundesliga since the league's inaugural season.
It looked as though they would be out again in 1998-99, but they pulled through by beating defending champions Kaiserslautern 5:1, while 1. FC Nürnberg unexpectedly lost at home to give Eintracht the break they needed to stay up.
The following year, in another struggle to avoid relegation, the club was "fined" two points by the German Football Association (DFB) for financial misdeeds, but pulled through with a win by a late goal over SSV Ulm on the last day of the season.
The club was plagued by financial difficulties again in 2004 before once more being relegated.
Between 1997 and 2005, Eintracht has bounced between the top two divisions.
The 2010-11 season ended with the club's fourth Bundesliga relegation.
After setting a new record for most points in the first half of the season, the club struggled after the winter break.
After seven games without scoring a goal, coach Michael Skibbe was doubted, and despite the team winning the next game, Skibbe was sacked and replaced with Christoph Daum.
The change, however, did little to change Eintracht's fortunes, as the club achieved only three draws out of the last seven games and were subsequently relegated on the 34th matchday.
One year later, Eintracht defeated Alemannia Aachen 3:0 on the 32nd match day of the 2011-12 season, thus qualifying for the Bundesliga.
In 2015-16, Eintracht had the 19th-highest attendance in Europe, ahead of such prominent clubs as Atlético Madrid, Celtic and Paris Saint-Germain.
Success outside the Bundesliga
The club has enjoyed considerable success in competition outside the Bundesliga.
Eintracht famously lost the European Cup final to Real Madrid on 18 May 1960 at Hampden Park 7:3 in front of 127,621 spectators.
It is one of the most talked about European matches of all time, with Alfredo Di Stéfano scoring three and Ferenc Puskás scoring the other four in Real's victory.
In 1967, Eintracht won the Intertoto Cup after beating Inter Bratislava in the final.
Eintracht won the DFB-Pokal in 1974, 1975, 1981 and 1988, and took the UEFA Cup over another German team, Borussia Mönchengladbach, in 1980.
More recently, Eintracht were the losing finalists in the 2005-06 DFB-Pokal.
Their opponents in the final, that year's Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich, previously qualified to participate in the Champions League.
As a result, Eintracht, received the DFB-Pokal's winner's place in the UEFA Cup, where they advanced to the group stage.
Besides playing friendlies against famous clubs from all of the world, Eintracht also played friendly matches against national teams from the following countries:
Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Tunisia and Vietnam.
Players