Eintracht Frankfurt raves – Barça coaches with cheap excuses

Europa League Quarterfinals
Eintracht Frankfurt raves about the football festival – cheap excuses come from the Barça coach

The Frankfurt professionals knew that they had shown an outstanding performance against the great FC Barcelona that evening. For minutes, the players stood in front of the singing supporters in the curve and let themselves be duly celebrated. During the loud “Eintracht-Frankfurt-Walzer” one almost had the feeling that Eintracht had already made it into the semi-finals of the Europa League, although they had only reached a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the quarter-finals – but against the big favorites and also without the world star Lionel Messi shining FC Barcelona. No matter how the duel ends in a week at the Camp Nou, nobody can take this wondrous football evening away from the Frankfurters.

“We had them on the brink of defeat, so we remain very, very humble. We are incredibly happy with the performance. We will go to Barcelona with the belief that we can win there,” said head coach Oliver Glasner, to whom the guests thanked Ferran Torres equalized a dream goal by Ansgar Knauff. The Austrian Glasner felt no anger or frustration shortly before midnight, although his team had the better chances and Barça fought on an equal footing.

Oliver Glasner: always stay humble

“Today trouble, then you lose the ground under your feet. It’s important to always remain humble,” said Glasner, who saw his tactical guidelines implemented almost perfectly in front of 48,000 spectators on a memorable football evening. The star ensemble around Pedri and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang hardly developed in the Frankfurt city forest and was still well served with the draw.

Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez said: “We have to be self-critical. We didn’t play well but we got a good result. You can lose but we drew. In the end we can be happy with the result.” The former world-class kicker puts everything on the Camp Nou factor, where the second leg will be played next Thursday (9 p.m.) in front of more than 90,000 spectators. What seemed a little embarrassing was Xavi’s criticism of the lawn in the old forest stadium. Goalscorer Torres also complained about the quality of the pitch after the game, but didn’t want to see that as an excuse for the Catalans’ mediocre performance.

Eintracht fans want to overrun Barcelona

Then the Eintracht fans want to get involved again. Officially, the Hessians are only entitled to a contingent of around 5,000 tickets, but Eintracht is of little interest in their Europe madness and after two hard years of a pandemic-related break. “We have 35,000 ticket requests for Barcelona,” said spokesman Axel Hellmann before the first leg on RTL. The good starting position should only further fuel Frankfurt’s desire to travel. However, planning the trip is always complicated because the flights have been overbooked since shortly after the draw.

Goalkeeper Kevin Trapp, who defused a powerful Torres shot after just three minutes, saw the team’s “outstanding game”, but felt not only happy after the final whistle. “In the end it’s a bit crazy because we left the pitch with a 1-1 draw against Barcelona and we felt we could have done better,” said the international goalkeeper. You have “created a position in which everything is possible”. Defender Tuta, who had to leave the field after a yellow-red card, will be absent in the second leg.

tis
DPA