Eintracht Frankfurt

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Eintracht Frankfurt is a German sports club, based in Frankfurt, Hessen that is best known for its football team.

History

Club origins

Pre-Bundesliga history

Through the late 20s and into the 30s Eintracht won a handful of local and regional championships, but never made it very far in the national championship rounds. In 1933, German football was re-organized into sixteen Gauliga 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.

They picked up where they left off after World War II playing as a solid side in the first division Oberliga Süd, capturing division titles in 1953 and 1959. Their first big success came on the heels of that second divisional title as they went on to a 5:3 victory over Kickers Offenbach to take the German national title and followed up immediately with an outstanding run in the European Champions Cup. Eintracht lost 3:7 to Real Madrid in an exciting final widely regarded as one of the best football matches ever played.

Founding member of the Bundesliga

They 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 along with 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 away, while Nuernberg 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 DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) 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.

Since 1997, Eintracht has bounced between the top two divisions and has often kept its fans on edge over whether or not the side would be demoted, but in the 2005-06 season supporters learned earlier than is often the case that the club would stay up, as they finished their Bundesliga season in 14th place, three points clear of relegation.

id:ErsteLiga  value:red legend:1.Bundesliga
id:ZweiteLiga  value:black    legend:2.Bundesliga

bar:Leaders width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:S

from:start till:1996 shift:(25,5)  color:ErsteLiga text: 63/64 - 95/96
from:1996  till:1998 shift:(25,5)    color:ZweiteLiga text: 96/97 - 97/98
from:1998  till:2001  shift:(25,5)  color:ErsteLiga text: 98/99 - 00/01
from:2001  till:2003  shift:(25,5)  color:ZweiteLiga text: 01/02 - 02/03
from:2003  till:2004  shift:(25,5)  color:ErsteLiga text: 03/04
from:2004  till:2005  shift:(25,5)  color:ZweiteLiga text: 04/05
from:2005  till:end  shift:(25,5)  color:ErsteLiga text: 05/06 - today

Success outside the Bundesliga

Honours

• German champions: 1959
• German Cup champions: 1974, 1975, 1981, 1988
• UEFA Cup champions: 1980
• Coppa delle Alpi: 1967

Players 2006/2007

Famous players

• Uwe Bein
• Thomas Berthold
• Jörg Böhme
• Cha Bum-Kun
• Jan Åge Fjørtoft
• Maurizio Gaudino
• Jürgen Grabowski, played for the team from 1965 to 1980, and made 44 appearances for the West German national side that included 1974's World Cup win.
• Andreas Köpke
• Karl-Heinz Körbel, played a record 602 Bundesliga games, 1st overall
• Andreas Möller
• Willi Neuberger, played over 500 Bundesliga games, 7th overall
• Bernd Nickel, played 420 Bundesliga games
• Jay-Jay Okocha
• Alfred Pfaff World cup winner in 1954
• Bernd Schneider
• Anthony Yeboah

Records

• Home victory, Bundesliga: 9-1 vs. Rot-Weiss Essen, 5 October 1974
• Away victory, Bundesliga: 8-1 . Rot-Weiss Essen, 7 May 1977
• Home loss, Bundesliga: 0-7 vs. Karlsruher SC, 19 September 1964
• Away loss, Bundesliga: 0-7 vs. 1.FC Köln, 29 October 1983
• Highest attendance: 81,000 vs. FK Pirmasens, 23 May 1959
• Highest average attendance, season: 41,863, 2005/2006
• Most appearances, all competitions total: 718, Karl-Heinz “Charly” Körbel 1972–1991
• Most appearances, Bundesliga: 602, Karl-Heinz “Charly” Körbel 1972–1991
• Most goals scored, total: 178 (DFB-Pokal-Goals missing), Bernd Hölzenbein 1966–1981
• Most goals scored, Bundesliga: 160, Bernd Hölzenbein 1966–1981
• Most goals scored, season, Bundesliga: 26, Bernd Hölzenbein, 1976/77

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|- style="text-align:center;" |width="25%"|The club |width="25%"|History |width="25%"|Records |width="25%"|Supporters |- style="text-align:center;" | | |Player list |Commerzbank-Arena/Waldstadion

Team trivia

• Jürgen Friedl, (born February 23, 1959) was the youngest player ever to take to the field in a Bundesliga match at age 17 years, 26 days on August 6, 1975.
• Richard Kress, (born March 6, 1925) was the oldest Bundesliga rookie, making his debut at 38 years, 171 days on the opening day of league play on August 24, 1963. He scored his first Bundesliga goal at 38 years, 248 days.
• Eintracht holds the record for most consecutive away games without a win: 32 games from August 20, 1985 to August 25, 1987.
• The club also holds the mark for early dismissal of its coach: twenty men have met this fate in Frankfurt.

See also

• List of Eintracht Frankfurt players

Other sections within the club

Within the football section, the sports club directly manages only the youth system and the reserve team. The professional footballers are managed as a separate limited corporation, Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball-AG, which is a subsidiary of the parent club.

External links

• [Official team site]
• [Abseits Guide to German Soccer]
• [First official fansite]
• [Official stadium website]
• [Eintracht Frankfurt statistics]

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