Eintracht Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt (traditional name: Sportgemeinde Eintracht or SGE for short) is a registered sports club in Frankfurt am Main. With its football department, Eintracht was a founding member of the Bundesliga in 1963, is considered one of the great traditional clubs in German football and after 52 seasons in the Bundesliga so far, ranks 8th in the perpetual table. The club's greatest successes include winning the German championship in 1959 and the UEFA Cup in 1980. Between 1996 and 2012, the club had to compete in the 2nd Bundesliga for a total of six seasons and repeatedly had to fight for its sporting and economic existence. In May 2018, Eintracht won a major title again after 30 years by winning the DFB Cup for the fifth time overall.

The club also maintains 17 other departments for various sports. The club colours are red, black and white, the club emblem is the Frankfurt eagle, and the playing dress is traditionally black, red or black and white. The home games of the professional footballers are played at Deutsche Bank Park (formerly Waldstadion or Commerzbank Arena) in Sachsenhausen-Süd. The offices of Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG are located there in the west stand and, since 2011, also in the east stand. The first team's training sessions take place on an outdoor pitch in front of the stadium, formerly at Riederwald. The club itself maintains its offices at the Riederwald sports ground in Frankfurt's Seckbach district, which was inaugurated in 1952.

The club has 91,116 members (as of January 2021), making it the eighth largest sports club in Germany as well as 17th in the world.

Association Structure

Eintracht Frankfurt e. V. consists of the following 19 departments:

01 Gymnastics (since 22 January 1861) 02 Football (since 8 March 1899) 03 Athletics (since 1899) 04 Hockey (since 1906 as 1st Frankfurter HC) 05 Boxing (since 1919) 06 Tennis (since spring 1920) 07 Handball (since 1921)

08 Rugby (since summer 1923) 09 Table Tennis (since November 1924) 10 Basketball (since June 4, 1954) 11 Ice Sports (since December 9, 1959) 12 Volleyball (since July 1961) 13 Fans & supporters section (since December 2000) 14 Ice hockey (1959-91 and since 1 July 2002)

15 Darts (since 1 July 2006) 16 Triathlon (since January 2008) 17 Ultimate Frisbee (since 2015) 18 Table Football (since July 2016) 19 e-Sports (since 2018).

In terms of football, the Eintracht Frankfurt club is now only responsible for the youth and amateur teams and the women's team. The professional football teams are under the control of Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball Aktiengesellschaft, a subsidiary of the club.

Association

The highest body of the club is the presidium. Its members are the president (Peter Fischer) and currently four vice-presidents responsible for specific areas (Dieter Burkert: amateur and youth section, Thomas Förster: finance and treasurer, Stefan Minden: Legal and Fan and Development Department, Michael Otto).

Other governing bodies are the Board of Directors, the Election Committee and the Honorary Council. The heads of all departments are represented in a further body, the Advisory Board.

Incorporated

The profit-oriented professional football stock corporation was founded on 1 July 2000. The shareholders of the AG are the registered club with 67.89%, Freunde des Adlers GmbH (Philip Holzer and Stephen Orenstein) with 16.81%, Freunde der Eintracht Frankfurt AG (Bankhaus Metzler, DZ Bank, Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen and BHF-Bank) with 7.3%, Herzschlag Eintracht GmbH with 5% and Wolfgang Steubing AG with 3%.

Since 1 September 2015, it has been managed by a three-member Executive Board, which since 1 June 2016 has included Fredi Bobic, Axel Hellmann and Oliver Frankenbach.

The Management Board is supervised by a nine-member Supervisory Board, which includes representatives of the owner (the association), the city and the state of Hesse, and whose chairman has been Philip Holzer since 28 July 2020. The previous Chairman, Wolfgang Steubing, was appointed an honorary member of the Supervisory Board for life on 28 July 2020.

The sporting management is responsible for the sporting affairs of the men's Bundesliga team. Under the leadership of Sport Director Bobic, its members include Sport Director Bruno Hübner, Head Coach Adi Hütter and Head Scout Ben Manga. Christoph Preuß acts as team manager. The head of the professional players' department is Thomas Westphal.

The AG also includes the 1st and 2nd women's football teams now competing for Eintracht Frankfurt as of 1 July 2020 following the merger with 1. FFC Frankfurt, which play in the Women's Bundesliga and the 2nd Women's Bundesliga respectively.

Eintracht Frankfurt has also been operating and marketing the stadium, Deutsche Bank Park, since 1 July 2020. Eintracht Frankfurt Stadion GmbH was founded as a subsidiary of the AG for this purpose.

Former office of the club (not of the first football team) on the Riederwald grounds in Frankfurt-Seckbach

History of the club

1899-1920: The predecessor clubs

On 8 March 1899, the Frankfurt football club Victoria von 1899, an early spin-off of the oldest Frankfurt football club Germania 1894, was founded as the predecessor of today's Frankfurt Eintracht. Probably in the same year, a second parent club of Eintracht was also founded, the "Frankfurter Fußball-Club Kickers von 1899". The latter also provided the first Frankfurt international a few years later: In the first international match of a German national football team, a friendly against Switzerland in 1908, Kickers player Fritz Becker scored two goals, contributing to the final score of 3:5. Also in 1908, the 1st Frankfurt Hockey Club joined the Kickers.

On 13 May 1911, the two rivals Victoria and Kickers merged to form the "Frankfurter Fußballverein (Kickers-Victoria) von 1899", or Frankfurter FV for short. In its first season, the FFV secured the North District Championship at the first attempt. This meant that in 1912, for the first time, a Frankfurt club was in the final round of the Southern German championship, where the FFV had no chance. In the summer of 1912, the new club grounds on Roseggerstrasse were occupied and inaugurated on September 8 with a match against Quick Den Haag. From a sporting point of view, the northern district championship was repeated in the following seasons and in the subsequent southern German finals, the FFV performed much better in 1913 and 1914, becoming southern German runners-up in each case.

At this time, the Frankfurter FV already had over 800 members and fielded twelve football teams; other sports included hockey, cricket and fencing, as well as various athletics disciplines. The membership of the FFV, which was not rooted in a single district like the other large Frankfurt clubs, came mainly from the upper middle classes, which was also expressed in the cultivation of prestige sports such as hockey and cricket.

1920-1933: Eintracht on its way to becoming a top team

Almost nine years (April 1920) after the first merger to form FFV Kickers-Victoria, the club merged again, this time with Frankfurter Turngemeinde, founded in 1861, to form "Turn- und Sportgemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt von 1861". This merger marked the first time that the formative name "Eintracht" was associated with the Frankfurt club. However, in 1927, under pressure from the German Gymnastics Association, the clean break came again: the "Turngemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt von 1861" and the "Sportgemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt (F.F.V) von 1899" were newly formed.

After the enforced split in 1927, the two clubs "Frankfurter Sportgemeinde Eintracht ( F.F.V.) von 1899 e. V." and "Turn- und Fechtgemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt von 1861 e. V." were reunited in 1928. Since then, the registered association is called "Eintracht Frankfurt e. V.".

From the 1920/21 season onwards, Eintracht played its home games in the Riederwald Stadium in the Seckbach district. The newly built stadium had a capacity of 30,000 spectators, making it one of the largest stadiums in Germany. In 1921, Eintracht qualified for the Southern German Championship as champions of the Northern Main District League, but failed to reach the final. In the following years, Eintracht usually finished among the top teams in the Kreisliga Nordmain, but did not qualify for the Southern German championship again until 1928.

Eintracht received support during this period from the Jewish owners of the Frankfurt shoe factory J. & C.A. Schneider. The shoe factory, run by the brothers Fritz and Lothar Adler and their cousin Walter Neumann, produced in particular slippers, in Frankfurt dialect these are Schlappe. At that time, the Eintracht footballers were known as Schlappekicker. In 1928, the club achieved the greatest success in its history up to that time by qualifying for the final round of the German championship as southern German runners-up. Eintracht was eliminated in the round of 16 by SpVgg Sülz. Until 1933, Eintracht succeeded in qualifying for the South German championship every year; in 1932, Eintracht Frankfurt even became South German champion and German runner-up after a 2-0 defeat to FC Bayern.

1933-1945: Moderate success in the Gauliga and wartime

While Eintracht was considered a liberal and cosmopolitan club before the National Socialists came to power, partly because Jewish officials, athletes and sponsors contributed to its successes, after 1933 it cooperated with the new regime without resistance. Among the five officials who participated in the Nazi system of rule were football star and later honorary president Rudolf Gramlich and the well-known track and field athlete Adolf Metzner.

From the 1933/34 season, 16 Gauligen formed the highest class of German football. Eintracht (together with FSV Frankfurt, among others) was placed in the Gauliga Südwest. There were no major sporting successes, only once (1938) did Eintracht win the league and thus qualify for the German Football Championship 1937/38, but Eintracht was eliminated in the group matches due to the worse goal difference compared to Hamburger SV. From 1939 onwards, Eintracht, like most German football clubs, suffered from a lack of players due to the war, as many players had to go to the front. During the Second World War, the Riederwaldstadion burned down completely in 1943 during the air raids on Frankfurt am Main due to Allied incendiary bombs, and Eintracht therefore played its home games on its old sports ground on Roseggerstraße from January 1944 onwards. Due to the growing shortage of players towards the end of the war, Eintracht formed the "Kriegssportgemeinschaft Frankfurt" together with FSV Frankfurt from the 1944/45 season onwards. This team played its last match on 7 January 1945.

1945-1963: Oberliga Süd and German championship

After the Second World War, the newly formed SG Eintracht won the Hesse Cup in 1946. In 1948, Eintracht set up a contract players' department in the wake of the increasing professionalisation of German football. In 1954, Eintracht Frankfurt sent national player Alfred Pfaff to Switzerland for the World Cup, where the team won the World Cup. In 1959, Eintracht won the German championship, the biggest success in the club's history to date, defeating local rivals Kickers Offenbach 5-3 in the Berlin final.

In the post-war years up to 1959, the ladies' table tennis section also won the team championship title seven times, underlining the variety of sports within the club.

Eintracht Frankfurt became the first German team to reach the final of the European Champion Clubs' Cup in 1960, but were spectacularly beaten 7-3 in the final in Glasgow by Real Madrid, the measure of all things at the time. Frankfurt striker Erwin Stein, who scored twice in the final, later commented: "My opponent José Emilio Santamaria almost undressed me on the pitch. In comparison, we were just a bunch of good Hessians". Despite conceding seven goals, Eintracht fought bravely and contested a good final. The match was later named the best European Cup final of all time with its ten goals.

1963-1978: Eintracht in the Bundesliga

 

In 1963, Eintracht Frankfurt was one of the founding members of the Bundesliga, which replaced the Oberligen as the new top division. In the first season, they finished third and vice cup winner after a 0:2 in the cup final against TSV 1860 Munich in Stuttgart.

In 1966, the year of the World Cup in England, Eintracht fielded Jürgen Grabowski and Friedel Lutz, two players from the national team that finished runners-up in the World Cup.

In the 1971/72 season, Eintracht qualified for the UEFA Cup, which was introduced in the same season, for the first time, but was unlucky to draw and had to play Liverpool FC in the first round. Frankfurt was eliminated and Liverpool won the competition.

As in 1966 and 1970, Grabowski took part in the 1974 World Cup in West Germany, now with teammate Bernd Hölzenbein. Hölzenbein scored a penalty in the final against the Netherlands, which Paul Breitner of FC Bayern converted to make it 1-1. Germany eventually won 2-1 and became world champions for the second time after 1954.

In the year of the World Cup and in the following year (1975), Eintracht won the DFB Cup twice: in 1974 in the final against Hamburger SV by 3:1 n. V. and in 1975 by a 1:0 against MSV Duisburg. In the 1975/76 season, Frankfurt reached the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup, where they were beaten by West Ham United: after a 2-1 home win, they lost 1:3 in London, with a Frankfurt player only hitting the post of the empty goal shortly before the end. In the Bundesliga, on the other hand, they only managed to finish third (1975) and fourth (1974 and 1977). Between 20 November 1976 and August 1977, the team remained undefeated in 21 consecutive Bundesliga matches.

1978-1994: Near relegations and near championships

On 21 May 1980, Eintracht Frankfurt won the UEFA Cup under coach Friedel Rausch. Their opponents in the all-German final were Borussia Mönchengladbach. Although Gladbach won the first leg 3-2, Eintracht won the second leg at the Waldstadion with a 1-0 goal from Fred Schaub, who had come on as a substitute shortly before. Due to the away goals rule, Eintracht were UEFA Cup winners.

A year later, Eintracht won 3-1 against 1. FC Kaiserslautern and in 1988 against VfL Bochum (1-0), the third and fourth successes in the DFB Cup. In the league, however, Eintracht mostly languished in mid-table in the 1980s, narrowly escaping relegation on several occasions. Low spectator numbers in football and mismanagement in the ice hockey department had brought Eintracht large losses. It proved to be a stroke of luck that George Koskotas, the then owner of Olympiakos Piraeus, was willing to pay the then record amount of DM 18 million as a transfer fee for midfielder Lajos Détári. Détári had shone in the previous season with 14 competitive goals. While DM 8 million went to the Hungarian Football Association, the whereabouts of the transfer fee of DM 10 million at Eintracht has not been fully clarified to this day. Nevertheless, the club managed to pay off a large part of its debts. In 1988/89, Eintracht finished the season in 16th place and had to play a relegation match against 1. FC Saarbrücken. However, the Frankfurt team, under coach Jörg Berger, narrowly won the relegation. The following season, Eintracht surprisingly finished third and also had their first top scorer in Norwegian Jørn Andersen. Andersen was the first foreigner to win the title.

As in the World Cups won in 1954 and 1974, Eintracht also fielded an international player in the 1990 title win: Uwe Bein. Also in the line-up was Andreas Möller, who returned to Eintracht for the 1990/91 season.

In the following years, Eintracht always finished among the top five teams. During these years, Eintracht played the legendary "Football 2000", whose representatives included Anthony Yeboah, Jay-Jay Okocha, Uwe Bein, Maurizio Gaudino and Andreas Möller. However, Eintracht did not achieve any success at international level during these years. Although they regularly qualified for the UEFA Cup, they were usually eliminated in the first rounds. In the 1993/94 season, the team under Klaus Toppmöller reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup, but was eliminated in a penalty shoot-out against the eventual finalists Austria Salzburg. Probably the most tragic match in the club's history took place in 1992 on the last matchday of the 1991/92 season at FC Hansa Rostock, who still had a theoretical chance of staying in the league by winning. Eintracht lost 2-1 at Ostseestadion, partly after referee Alfons Berg denied Eintracht a justified penalty after a foul in the box on Ralf Weber. Berg later admitted his mistake, but Frankfurt missed out on the German championship; the champions were VfB Stuttgart. The Eintracht team of the 1991/92 season is considered the best Frankfurt team of all time. In 1993/94, Eintracht led the league by 5 points over second-placed FC Bayern München. In the second half of the season, however, Eintracht only picked up 14 points and finished the season in 5th place.

1994-1996: End of uninterrupted first division membership

After the turbulent events of the 1994/95 season, including the suspension of players Jay-Jay Okocha, Anthony Yeboah and Maurizio Gaudino by coach Jupp Heynckes, the 95/96 season began with Charly Körbel as coach, who had already replaced Heynckes in April 1995. Expectations for the team were high, as apparent reinforcements were signed in Markus Schupp, Johnny Ekström and the resumed Maurizio Gaudino. But even before the start of the season, Eintracht Frankfurt lost heavily in the quarterfinals of the UI Cup at French first division team Girondins Bordeaux (with Bixente Lizarazu and Zinédine Zidane among others) with 0:3. Eintracht survived the first round in the DFB Cup with a lot of luck (2:1 n. V. in Saarbrücken), and after the 5th matchday they were in 5th place in the Bundesliga table. But then things started to go downhill, despite the fact that they had already made some additions in September and the striker Ivica Mornar came from Hajduk Split. The cup defeat came in round two against 1860 Munich (1:5), the next five league games brought only one point on the account and a slip to the 16th place in the table. With a 4:1 win against Bayern Munich, the crisis seemed to be over. By the end of the first half of the season, Eintracht, strengthened in defence by Ned Zelic, who was brought in from QueensPark Rangers in December, had recovered and finished in 10th place. But appearances were deceptive, and not much happened in sporting terms. From the 18th to the 29th matchday, the Eagles were able to record just one win, the hoped-for turnaround through a change of coach after the 0:2 home defeat against Borussia Mönchengladbach - Charly Körbel was succeeded by an old acquaintance in Dragoslav Stepanović - failed to materialise. At the end of the season, Eintracht had 32 points and finished 17th in the table - the first time in their history that they were no longer in the top flight. The sporting decline found its equivalent at management level: the confidence of president Matthias Ohms was withdrawn, and treasurer Erbs subsequently resigned as well. Also in 1996, Frankfurt goalkeeper Andreas Köpke took part in the European Championship in England, where the German team won the title.

1996-2002: Impending decline

Eintracht's first year in the second division was disappointing. At the end of the first half of the season, they were relegated to 15th place, and in the second round of the cup they lost 6-1 to league rivals SV Meppen. After a change of coach from Stepanović to Horst Ehrmantraut and a satisfactory second half of the season, Frankfurt ended up in seventh place in the table. In the 97/98 season, Eintracht was promoted back to the Bundesliga as champions. In the following Bundesliga season, Eintracht Frankfurt had a total of four coaches. After Ehrmantraut's dismissal in December, the team was first coached by Bernhard Lippert, then Reinhold Fanz and finally Jörg Berger. In a relegation battle that was exciting right up to the last minute, Eintracht managed to stay in the league by beating 1. FC Kaiserslautern 5-1 on the final matchday. Thanks to a decisive goal in the 89th minute by Norwegian crowd favourite Jan Åge Fjørtoft, the Frankfurt side slipped to 15th place in the table, while 1. FC Nürnberg, who thought they had already secured their place, were relegated.

Against the background of the club's 100th anniversary in March 1999, the club gave itself a new club crest. The red "traditional eagle", which had been used since the club was founded, was slightly modified and replaced the stylised black and white eagle that Eintracht had used since 1980. In the context of financial difficulties, Eintracht's football department was spun off. Bernd Ehinger, then spokesman for the executive committee, founded the public limited company, which now participates in match operations as "Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG". It is a subsidiary of the club "Eintracht Frankfurt".

In the 1999/2000 season, Eintracht, which was deducted two points, had to spend the winter in last place despite many newly purchased players. After a change of coach from Jörg Berger to Felix Magath, Eintracht surprisingly became the third-strongest team in the second half of the season and once again secured its place in the league with a 2-1 win over direct rivals SSV Ulm 1846.

On 19 August 2000, at the suggestion of the Board of Directors, Peter Fischer became President of Eintracht. On 11 December 2000, committed Eintracht members established the Fan and Support Department as Eintracht Frankfurt's 13th department.

In 2001, Eintracht was less fortunate than in the two previous years, when in each case it secured its place in the league on the last match days of the season, and was relegated to the second division for the second time. Eintracht started the season well (fifth place on matchday 13), but this was followed by six consecutive defeats, which led to the dismissal of coach Felix Magath in February. Sporting director Rolf Dohmen temporarily coached the team for ten matchdays until Friedel Rausch became the new coach. However, the team parted ways with Rausch after Eintracht was relegated.

In the following year, the future of Eintracht's football department faced an uncertain fate more than once; after the exit of the investor Octagon and the surprising jumping out of a potential investor at the last minute, there was an 8 million hole in the budget for the new season. Only through the establishment of a sponsor pool around companies in the municipal (partial) ownership (RMV, Fraport, Mainova, Messe Frankfurt) it was possible under the chairman of the supervisory board Volker Sparmann to raise the missing millions. However, due to an error in the licence documents, Eintracht's licence was not granted on time. SpVgg Unterhaching, which had already been relegated, filed a complaint with the DFL and, as the 15th-place team in the previous second division season, attempted to move up to 14th place as a result of Eintracht's forced relegation due to the license withdrawal. On 17 July 2002, the case was dismissed and relegation to the amateur classes was avoided. In the league, Eintracht, in seventh place, fell short of being promoted back to the first division.

2002-2016: The "Bruchhagen Era

Volker Sparmann moved from the Supervisory Board to the Executive Board and took over as Chairman. Due to Eintracht's long uncertain league affiliation, new players were only signed at short notice at the start of the 2002/03 season. Despite the supposedly weaker players, the new coach Willi Reimann succeeded in promoting the team to the Bundesliga for the second time. Only on eight match days Frankfurt was not on a promotion place; in the first round they were second. At the end of the season, however, promotion was once again threatened when they lost at Mainz on matchday 31 and slipped to 5th place. On the final matchday, Eintracht managed to advance to the Bundesliga in third place ahead of 1. FSV Mainz 05, who were level on points, thanks to two decisive goals in injury time in the now legendary 6-3 win over SSV Reutlingen 05. In the cup, Frankfurt defeated Rot-Weiß Erfurt (3:2 n. V.) and then lost to Hansa Rostock 0:1.

In the following 2003/04 season, Eintracht Frankfurt played against relegation from the start. In the cup, the SGE played its first competitive match against Kickers Offenbach since their relegation from the Bundesliga in 1984. Frankfurt won 4:3 after a penalty shootout (1:1 n. V.) at the Bieberer Berg; in the second round, however, it was all over against MSV Duisburg. In the Bundesliga first round, Eintracht could only win three times and finished last. After Peter Schuster was forced to resign as the new chairman of the board in August 2003 after only 6 weeks, Heiko Beeck, who had moved from the supervisory board to the board of directors, acted as interim spokesman for the board until Heribert Bruchhagen took over as chairman on 1 December 2003; however, the new board was only able to soften the decisions made by his predecessors. The winter break saw some sensible transfers, but these only brought short-term success (three wins and two draws at the start of the second half of the season). On 20 March 2004, during the match in Dortmund (0:2), coach Willi Reimann got physical with fourth official Thorsten Schriever, which resulted in a five-match suspension and a €25,000 fine against Reimann. In the second half of the season Eintracht finished twelfth, but the 16th place in the table and thus the third relegation in the club's history could not be avoided. This led to the dismissal of Reimann as coach.

In 2004, Friedhelm Funkel became the new coach of the second-division club. Eintracht started the new season without any spectacular transfers and with a concept that has since been abandoned (inexpensive players capable of integration, loan deals for young talents, some from the region). After a poor start (14th place on matchday 11), the club moved up to 5th place at the winter break and, as the best team in the second half of the season, achieved its third promotion to the first division on matchday 34 with a 3-0 win over Wacker Burghausen. In the cup, Eintracht reached the round of 16 after wins against FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt and SpVgg Greuther Fürth, where they lost 0:2 to eventual finalists FC Schalke 04.

In its first year in the Bundesliga, Frankfurt put in a surprisingly good first half of the season in 2005/06 with young players (10th place and 21 points) and, despite having the second-worst second half of the season (15 points), secured its place in the league on matchday 33. In the end, they finished the season in 14th place in the table with 36 points. In the DFB Cup, Eintracht advanced to the cup final after wins against Rot-Weiß Oberhausen (2:1), FC Schalke 04 (6:0), 1. FC Nürnberg (5:2 n. E.), TSV 1860 München (3:1) and Arminia Bielefeld (1:0). On 29 April 2006, Frankfurt lost 1-0 to FC Bayern München in Berlin, which qualified for the Champions League as the German champions, meaning that the SGE played in the UEFA Cup for the first time since 1994.

Eintracht got off to a good start in the 2006/07 season. In the UEFA Cup, they were able to defeat Brøndby IF. In the group stage, the SGE was eliminated with three draws and one defeat against Newcastle United (0:0), Celta Vigo (1:1), Fenerbahçe Istanbul (2:2) and US Palermo (1:2). In the DFB Cup, Sportfreunde Siegen (2:0), Rot-Weiss Essen (2:1), 1. FC Köln (3:1 n. V.) and local rivals Kickers Offenbach (3:0) were eliminated before a 0:4 defeat at 1. FC Nürnberg in the semi-finals prevented Frankfurt from reaching the final again. In the Bundesliga, Frankfurt started the new season with one win and seven draws. At the end of the first half of the season, Eintracht was in tenth place in the table with 20 points, just like last year. The second half of the season, which was marked by unnecessary losses of points due to many goals conceded in the final minutes, initially began with six winless games and a drop to the relegation places. However, CEO Bruchhagen rejected a dismissal of coach Funkel, which was demanded by Hesse's FDP chairman Jörg-Uwe Hahn, among others. After wins against Alemannia Aachen (4:0) and Werder Bremen (2:1) on the 32nd and 33rd matchday, however, Eintracht was able to secure its place in the league at an early stage, as in the previous season. In the end, Eintracht stood in 14th place with 40 points. 20 points were collected both at home and away.

In the 2007/08 season, the SGE defeated 1. FC Union Berlin (4:1) in the DFB Cup competition, but was eliminated in the second round by eventual finalists Borussia Dortmund (1:2). In the league, Eintracht started strong (four wins and two defeats in the first nine games), but then a sharp 1:5 defeat at 1. FC Nürnberg and a series of seven consecutive winless games followed. The first half of the season ended in ninth place with 23 points. In the winter break, Frankfurt strengthened itself with Caio (€ 4 million transfer fee) and Martin Fenin (€ 3.5 million), two of the three most expensive purchases in the club's history. At the start of the second half of the season, Eintracht Frankfurt picked up 19 points from the first nine games. As a result, Frankfurt were in seventh place on matchday 26, three points behind the Champions League places. However, they only managed to pick up four points from their remaining eight games. The club finished the season in ninth place, their best finish since 1995, with 46 points, 28 of which came at home and 18 at away stadiums.

In the following 2008/09 season, the season goal of scoring more than the 46 points of the previous year could not be achieved. In the cup, Eintracht was eliminated in the second round at home against Hansa Rostock (1:2 n. V.). The league began with seven winless games in a row, which led to considerable criticism from fans of coach Friedhelm Funkel. However, three wins in the next four games brought Eintracht back to mid-table and they finished the first half of the season in 12th place with 19 points. In the second half of the season, Frankfurt often disappointed, winning only 3 games. This was the second worst second half of all Bundesliga clubs with only 14 points. As a result, Eintracht and Funkel announced a separation at the end of the season before the last matchday. The season ultimately ended in 13th place in the table with 33 points. Despite the disappointing performance, this was the second best finish since 1995, with not a single win against a team from the top two thirds of the table during the entire season.

Michael Skibbe was introduced as the new coach on 5 June 2009. In the DFB Cup, after wins against local rivals Kickers Offenbach and Alemannia Aachen, Frankfurt was eliminated in the round of 16 against FC Bayern Munich with 0:4. In the league, the SGE started well and remained unbeaten until matchday 7, at the end of the year Eintracht had 24 points and ranked 10th. In terms of points, this meant the best first-round record since 1993/94. The team was also successful in the second half of the season and was involved in the fight for the European Cup places for a long time. However, due to a weak phase before the end of the season (only two points from the last five games of the season), Eintracht finished the season in tenth place in the table with 46 points, just like at the winter break.

After a poor start to the 2010/11 season, when only three points were won in the first five games, Eintracht found itself in a relegation spot. However, as the following matches were more successful, the team finished the first half of the season in seventh place with 26 points after an interim fourth place finish and also had the league's most successful striker in Theofanis Gekas (14 goals for the season) in its ranks at the winter break. Despite the good starting position, the second half of the season saw the start of a downward spiral that had not been thought possible. In the first eight games after the winter break, the team failed to score a goal and remained winless for a total of ten games. On 22 March 2011, Eintracht Frankfurt announced the departure of Michael Skibbe. Christoph Daum was appointed as his successor. With a new negative record of only eight points in the Rückrunde, Eintracht was relegated to the 2nd Bundesliga after the season. On 16 May 2011, Daum declared two days after the relegation that he would no longer be available for Eintracht for the 2011/12 season. On 31 May, Armin Veh was presented as coach for the 2011/12 season. The Zweitliga season was successful overall, and already two matchdays before the end of the season, on 23 April 2012, Eintracht achieved direct relegation to the Bundesliga with a 3-0 win at Alemannia Aachen. In addition, Alex Meier was the top scorer of the season with 17 goals (together with Olivier Occéan from SpVgg Greuther Fürth and Nick Proschwitz from SC Paderborn 07).

The new Bundesliga season 2012/13 got off to a brilliant start. With four wins from the first four games, the club set a new club record as well as a Bundesliga record: Never before has a promoted club achieved four victories at the start of a season. On 10 November 2012, Sebastian Jung - then Horst Heldt - was the first Frankfurt Eintracht player to be nominated for the German national team in 13 years, when he was called up by Joachim Löw for the friendly match on 14 November 2012 in Amsterdam against the Netherlands, but did not feature. Eintracht finished the first half of the season in fourth place in the table. At the end of the season, Frankfurt Eintracht was in 6th place and thus qualified for an international competition, the Europa League, for the first time since 2006. There, after successful qualification (2-0 and 2-1 against QarabağAğdam), the team confidently prevailed in the group stage with five wins, but was eliminated from the competition in the first knockout round ("round of sixteen") against FC Porto after two draws due to the away goals rule. In the Bundesliga, however, there were only 3 wins in the entire first half of the season, so that Frankfurt had to spend the winter close to the relegation zone in 15th place in the table. The second half of the season went a little better and a 1:3 defeat of Hamburger SV at FC Augsburg finally secured Eintracht's place in the league on match day 32. In the DFB Cup, the team advanced to the quarter-finals, where it was defeated 0:1 by Borussia Dortmund.

After Armin Veh declared in early March 2014 that he would not renew his contract, the club announced on 21 May that Thomas Schaaf would become the new coach as of July 2014. Over the course of the first half of the 2014/15 season, Eintracht improved and stabilised, especially towards the end, and finished the winter break in 9th place in the table with 23 points, which they also occupied at the end of the season. Alex Meier won the goalscorer's crown this season. In the DFB Cup, however, Eintracht did not advance beyond the second round (1-2 at home to Borussia Mönchengladbach). On 26 May 2015, three days after the end of the season, Thomas Schaaf's contract, which was supposed to run until the summer of 2016, was terminated at his request.

Armin Veh was again hired as Schaaf's successor for the 2015/16 season. The first half of the season was relatively mixed. The highlights were the big wins against Stuttgart (4:1) and Cologne (6:2) as well as the 0:0 against FC Bayern (with the exception of the defeat against Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bayern's only loss of points in the first half of the season). Eintracht was eliminated from the DFB Cup again in the 2nd round (0:1 in Aue). After seven winless games and standing with the team on the relegation place, Veh was released by the club on 6 March 2016. On 8 March 2016, Niko Kovač became the new head coach. This change did not have an immediate effect, but after three wins in the last four league games (including a 1-0 win over Borussia Dortmund) - with only five wins in the entire second half of the season - the club finally managed to finish sixteenth in the relegation play-offs against 1. FC Nürnberg with 1-1 and 1-0 victories, thus securing their place in the relegation play-offs.

Since 2016: Cup winner and several times in the European Cup

The 2015/16 season also marked the end of the "Bruchhagen era". His quasi-successor as "Director of Sport" (the position of Chairman of the Board, as held by Bruchhagen, no longer exists after his departure) was former Bundesliga professional and German international Fredi Bobic.

After the team managed to stay in the relegation zone, the squad was strengthened at the start of the 2016/17 season with numerous reserve players and talents from top European clubs (including Jamaican international Michael Hector from Chelsea, Guillermo Varela from Manchester United and Jesús Vallejo from Real Madrid), who were, however, only signed on loan for one year. After a bumpy start to the season with a 4:3 after penalty shootout (1:1 after extra time) at 1. FC Magdeburg in the first round of the DFB-Pokal, the team played a very good Bundesliga home series with wins against Schalke, Leverkusen and Dortmund, among others. With position 3 on matchday 19, they achieved their best ranking of the season. After that, they could only win two league games until the last matchday, conceded 10 defeats, 7 of which without having scored a goal themselves, and finished the league season in 11th place. Due to victories against Ingolstadt (4:1 n. E. still in the first half), in Hanover (2:1), against Bielefeld (1:0) and in Mönchengladbach (8:7 n. E.) the team at least managed to enter the final of the DFB Cup, which they lost against Borussia Dortmund with 1:2. An emotional highlight of Frankfurt's cup season was the substitution of Marco Russ in the 2nd half of the game against Bielefeld. Russ had had to take a break in the first half of the season due to cancer treatment.

In the 2017/18 season, the overall performance could be improved despite significant changes in the regular squad - with the signing of Kevin-Prince Boateng, Eintracht made one of the most sensational summer transfers in the Bundesliga. Due to a series of defeats at the end of the season, direct qualification for the Europa League was lost, but the team again reached the final of the DFB Cup thanks to mostly harmless victories against Erndtebrück (3:0), Schweinfurt (4:0), Heidenheim (2:1 n. V.), Mainz 05 (3:0) and a controversial 1:0 at Schalke. On 19 May 2018, the team defeated the highly-favoured FC Bayern Munich 3:1 and won the DFB Cup, its first title in 30 years. Eintracht benefited from a controversial decision in stoppage time, which the referee did not overturn even after viewing the video footage. It was Niko Kovač's last game as Eintracht coach after it was announced on 13 April that he would be moving to FC Bayern next season.

Austrian Adi Hütter succeeded Kovač for the 2018/19 season. In addition, Lukáš Hrádecký and Marius Wolf left Eintracht, and the contract of long-time striker Alex Meier, who was hailed as the "football god", was not renewed. New arrivals included Danish international goalkeeper Frederik Rønnow, who was signed to replace Hrádecký, and Filip Kostić. Under Adi Hütter, Eintracht lost the DFL Supercup match against FC Bayern 5-0 on 12 August 2018 and were eliminated a week later in the 1st main round of the DFB Cup against Viertligist SSV Ulm 1846. The team then went on a run of eleven consecutive unbeaten competitive matches from September to November 2018, and also became the first German team ever to win all six of their Europa League group matches. In the knockout rounds, Eintracht advanced to the semi-finals, where they were defeated by Chelsea FC on penalties in the second leg. At the end of the season, Eintracht Frankfurt finished 7th in the Bundesliga with 54 points and thus reached the Europa League qualifying round.

Two key players, Luka Jović (Real Madrid) and Sébastien Haller (West Ham United), left the club for the 2019/20 season, with Eintracht paying a total transfer fee of around €100 million. At the same time, three key players from the previous season - Martin Hinteregger, Kevin Trapp and Sebastian Rode - were signed on loan, while Portuguese international André Silva was loaned out by AC Milan shortly before the end of the transfer period, with Ante Rebić, the third player from the so-called "herd of buffaloes", taking the opposite route to Milan in return. In the early summer of 2020, Eintracht was also affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and had to take a break from March 2020. It was not until 16 May that the season resumed as a ghost match with a home game against Borussia Mönchengladbach. The matches took place under strict conditions until the end of the season in front of only a few people, consisting exclusively of officials, support staff, substitutes, journalists and stewards. In addition, as a transitional measure, it was permitted to substitute five players from now on, although this could only be done in three stoppages. At the end of the Bundesliga season, Frankfurt finished 9th in the table with 45 points. In the DFB Cup, the team reached the semi-finals, where they were defeated away by FC Bayern Munich (1:2). In the Europa League, Eintracht advanced to the round of the last 32 as group runners-up with 9 points, among other things after a 2-1 away win at FC Arsenal, where they beat FC Salzburg (4:1 and 2:2). In the round of 16, the team was eliminated with two defeats against FC Basel (0:3 and 0:1). At the end of the season, Gelson Fernandes and Marco Russ ended their playing careers.

Ahead of the 2020/21 season, the contract with head coach Adi Hütter and his two co-coaches was extended early by two years until 2023. Mijat Gaćinović was transferred to Hoffenheim in exchange for Steven Zuber, while Aymen Barkok and Tuta returned from their loan clubs. Arguably the most important summer transfer turned out to be Amin Younes, who was signed from SSC Napoli for two years with a subsequent purchase option. Eintracht initially played with their usual three-man backline, featuring an attacking midfielder in the person of Daichi Kamada and two centre-forwards in André Silva and Bas Dost. In the first half of the season, the Frankfurt side failed to get beyond a draw in many tight games, winning just two matches before the 12th Bundesliga matchday. In December 2020, Hütter switched the system to two attacking midfielders and trusted Amin Younes as a regular. Frankfurt then embarked on a run of 11 league games without defeat, beating teams in the top third of the table including Bayer 04 Leverkusen and FC Bayern Munich, and establishing themselves in a Champions League spot as the best team in the second half of the season in the interim. Bas Dost was released in the winter transfer window, with Luka Jović returning to the Main on loan until the end of the season. In addition, long-time captain David Abraham ended his career and a new captain was not initially appointed. After 3 defeats in the last 6 games of the season, Eintracht surrendered their 7-point lead over pursuers Borussia Dortmund after all and finished the season in 5th place in the table with 60 points, which qualified them for the Europa League group stage once again. The finish was the best for Eintracht since the 1993/94 season. In the DFB-Pokal, the team failed in the 2nd round to Leverkusen during the season. Especially André Silva, who became the second best goal scorer in the league with 28 goals, surpassing Bernd Hölzenbein as Frankfurt's most successful goal scorer within a Bundesliga season by 2 goals, as well as Filip Kostić, who gave 14 assists in the season, were considered the guarantors of success of the season. During the season, sporting director Bruno Hübner, sporting director Fredi Bobic and head coach Adi Hütter announced their departure at the end of the season. Board member Axel Hellmann was appointed spokesman for the board and will continue to perform his previous duties.

For the 2021/22 season, the current head scout Ben Manga will become the new sporting director, Markus Krösche will take on the role of sporting director. Oliver Glasner will be the new head coach.

Development of the club logo

The club logo is now also used in a black and white version.

League affiliation

All rankings from the 1920/21 season onwards can be found at Eintracht Frankfurt Season Standings. Eintracht is ranked 8th in the Bundesliga Eternal Table and is the club with the most defeats (666 in 1764 matches). Eintracht is 48th in the Bundesliga Eternal Table (all data as of end of season 2020/21).

Frankfurt team before a Europa League match against FC Salzburg on February 28, 2020.


Coat of arms of the Frankfurter FV (from 1911), the TuS Eintracht Frankfurt (1920), the Frankfurter Sportgemeinde Eintracht (1967) and the white eagle on a black background (1977-1999)


Oberliga Süd 1946: Karlsruher FV - Eintracht Frankfurt


Logo of the Eintracht from 1977 to 1999.


The "traditional eagle" reintroduced in 1999


Mural in Frankfurt, Grüneburgweg 81, to commemorate the 2018 Cup victory.