It divides the Eintracht following into two sides, also fuelled by the ongoing discussions about manager Funkel’s tactics – despite his new one year contract that recently had been agreed on with the management. A sad situation, as our fans used to be a strong unit with a great image around the country for being the most creative, supportive and most importantly the loudest fan base around. Now the team itself seems the more together unit than the supporters – which is a paradox situation really.
One problem is that Caio is technically capable but hardly ever plays like he’s from a galaxy far, far away. Still – he saved our neck when scoring a beauty of a goal against derby rival Karlsruhe. Another aspect of the ongoing Star Wars is that most of our stars are out with injuries – Amanatidis, Korkmaz, Spycher, now also Liberopulos with a toe injury.
A New Hope?
But the increasing form and supposedly improved attitude of Caio both in training and on the pitch, alongside the return of another Eintracht star could be the new hope for us in the relegation battle we recently slipped into. Multifunctional defender Chris is on his way back into the team after a ban for a red card, also the Austrian EURO 2008 star Korkmaz made his return, at least to the squad.
Much needed players seem to be on the way back, after a season that was a nightmare injury wise, a campaign very much influenced by the dark side of the force. Hopefully the Return of the Jedi will improve our game and help destroying the relegation Death Star. I am also not sure if it’s better to compare the referees we recently had with storm troopers or droids with programming faults (executing clerks without any visual judgement). Some decisions against us have been very poor, a trend that was to be seen across Bundesliga unfortunately.
Good effort against the Attacks of the Clones
One thing has been very positive so far in this Bundesliga galaxy 2008/09. Attacked by clones i.e. teams that also struggle and represent the lower zones of the league table we gained some crucial wins, and more importantly never lost. Check out this ranking including only meetings of teams from spot 12 and lower – Eintracht never lost, drew one and won 6 of those!
The relegation zone table, including matchday 21
The Eagles so far already made 19 points against teams at eye level – nearly half of what we might need in order to stay in Bundesliga at the end of the season. This could be the right attitude – stick to winning against the teams of a similar or lower strength, having a realistic perspective on who can be beat and who might be a touch too much for Eintracht. It is also a good mirror of what we are at the moment and where we belong. The strength of our (Jedi) squad is to good to go down, and not good enough for reaching out for high aims.
Will the Eintracht Empire Strike Back?
Our Eintracht squad of young apprentices can settle this season with some improved performances, and hopefully the ghost of relegation will leave us very soon. We have a lot of young talents, and I feel that the force is strong in them. They need some reassurance and consistency within Frankfurt’s games, within the starting line ups, from the more experienced knights – all of which was hardly possible due to all those injures.
I am still hoping that the young rebels get the chance to grow to a strong unit, and gain some consistency. If that happens, and if the majority of the squad stays fit there might be a chance to attack some of the bigger battleships of the Bundesliga galaxy. As I write this the home game against Schalke is upon us – hopefully when you read this those Gelsenkirchen troopers have been overthrown!
One thing though will never happen for sure though, and that is that our manager Funkel will say to our star signing: ‘Caio…I am your father…!’ ;-)
Blast from the Past – 01.03.1969
At this stage I’d like to introduce a new series – ‘Blast from the Past’ will look at the history of Eintracht Frankfurt – this time I checked out what happened 40 years ago around our beloved ‘diva’.
On Saturday the 01st of March in 1969 we hosted Werder Bremen at the Waldstadion on the 24th matchday of the season 1968/69. We had just suffered a bitter 2-0 defeat in Munich the week before, against Franz Beckenbauer and his FC Bayern, and we had dropped to spot 17 in the table for the second time that campaign, one of the two relegation spots back then (feels familiar?). We needed a win badly, against the Northeners who were ranked 12th and whom we had beaten in the first leg of the season 1-0 away.
Juergen Kalb (picture above) in his first of seven seasons at Eintracht scored the opener in the 4th minute, his second goal for the Eagles. It took Bremen only 10 
minutes to come back, Bernd Rupp scored the equaliser and the score remained 1-1 into half time. The Eintracht team around the legend Juergen Grabowski (also my personal all time hero) and Bernd ‘Dr. Hammer’ Nickel clinched the winner with half an hour to go – it was Hermann-Dieter Bellut who scored his third and last ever goal for Eintracht and made them leave the relegation zone. He had already netted the winner in the first leg against Werder.
That season we only once again dropped into the relegation zone which was on the 27th matchday. One week later there was a classic waiting for us – the derby against Kickers Offenbach, our rival from the other side of the river. In front of 60.000 at the Waldstadion our heroes Hoelzenbein, Nickel and Grabowski (picture below) scored to grab a 3-2 win. Probably a much needed boost for the team’s motivation – they remained unbeaten in the following last six games of the season winning four, finishing the campaign ranked 8th in the table.
But that day we swapped table positions with Kickers Offenbach who later on dropped to 18 and got relegated that year.
It was also Erich Ribbeck’s first season as a Bundesliga manager as well as his first one at Eintracht Frankfurt. He went on to manage the club five campaigns altogether, a record unbeaten up until today. Current manager Friedhelm Funkel has recently signed a new one year agreement with Eintracht, and if nothing unexpected is going to happen he’ll become the record holder as the manager with the longest stay at the club.
Ribbeck (picture above) later was in charge at Kaiserslautern, Dortmund, Leverkusen and Bayern, in October 1998 he took over Germany from Berti Vogts after Germany went out of the World Cup in the quarter final stage. Ribbeck resigned after a 3-0 defeat to Portugal during the group stage of EURO 2000 which meant that Germany had to pack up and go home. But his managing career had started in the heart of Europe, at Eintracht Frankfurt.
