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Mad on’er after all!
Did I ever diss Madonna? Tell stupid jokes about being mad on’er or not? Forget my last issue of the Corner, thanks to Madonna’s fans ruining the pitch of our beloved Waldstadion I was able to make it to the postponed match v Karlsruher SC. So no more angry looks towards radios and TVs blaring out ‘Holiday’ or ‘Pappa Don’t Preach’ – I take it all back, Madonna, we love you. If it wasn’t’ for you I would have watched the game on a greasy TV in a Pizza shop in the west of Germany. Luckily this time around I was able to make it to Frankfurt – for my very first Eintracht live game this season. And hell, it was time!
Desperate times, desperate measures: Eintracht had played seven games without winning a single one, gaining only three points so far. The hugely disappointed fan base started calling for a new manager, at least partly, but I will get back to that scenario later. It was time for a win, for a boost in confidence, for the reassurance that the team is still capable of winning. We discussed it within our Eintracht fanclub beforehand - any win would do, an own goal, a penalty gift, a shoddy goal in the 93rd minute. Anything. But please, dear football god, three points.
Bad run on and off the pitch
The performances on the pitch had drastically faded, and the confidence was lacking more and more from game to game. Meanwhile a load of injuries played their part in the crisis. Key players like Meier, Amanatidis or long time absentees like Preuss or Vasoski were missing due to injuries, new signing Korkmaz broke his foot in the very first training session for Eintracht. We had bad news nearly every week with more players dropping out like ripe apples falling from the tree. Chris – also an influential player - got red carded and missed three games.
Benny Koehler (apparently my mate Tom works with Benny’s cousin here in London) and Inamoto got injured – it always seemed that we had to pay for a player rejoining with another one or two dropping out. Last but not least the most expensive signing in Eintracht’s history had an ‘injury’ of its own – obesity (Caio). The obviously skilful Brazilian just doesn’t seem to gain fitness after rejoining the team with six kilos overweight in the summer.
Warm up
 So I joined the fans in Frankfurt when the moral was low, in the changing room as well as in the club’s surroundings. I probably was the most exited fan to be in the stadium v Karlsruhe, as I was one of the few who had not made it through all the disappointments of the recent weeks and months, as and where it had happened. Straight from the airport I went to the stadium (it was a Wednesday eveing kick off), meeting my fellow Schobberobbers at the pre match meeting point Country Kitchen pub for a few warm up drinks, and also to receive my ticket (always a good moment!).
Dear friends all around the globe, you probably know the feeling to make it to the ground after not having been there for a long time, finally. The smell of the Bratwurst sausages, the pre match tension, the hot debates about the situation. I loved it from minute one, and got more and more excited about the game, despite the miserable situation team and fans were in.
Please mind the gap
 Then, once inside the ground, the excitement rose once again as I put up our Schobberobber banner with our Banner Coordinator Rikki and viewed the great and colourful Eintracht support (see picture above), and of course the impressive and beautiful stadium, filling with a good 48,000 people and one eagle – our brilliant mascot called Attila (see picture on the right). The support kicked off with minute one, which did not necessarily go without saying. A gaping disagreement over two Eintracht individuals had developed within the supporters over the course of the recent flops in Bundesliga.
Parts of the fanbase had started to batter manager Friedhelm Funkel for his tactics and for the bad results of the start of the season. This had happened by ‘Funkel out!’ chants during games and also massively in the forum of the club’s website. The other part of the supporters (including myself) regards the support of the team in a bad situation as by far more important than individuals and their doings – at least during the game!
Unfit, unsettled, unused
 The second individual of this dispute, closely linked to the controversy regarding manager Funkel is the Brazilian midfielder Caio, who just does not seem to settle in and to get to a position where he can help the team. He clearly has potential, but his state of fitness, also his mentality and attitude seem to hinder him in triggering his talent.
Already last season a trend in the stadium had developed where fans where chanting ‘Caaio, Caaio’ in order to get him subbed on during games. He has shown some spark here and there, but he also came back from the summer break overweight and he had to abort some fitness test runs back then, due to unfitness. Not a sign towards the manager to express overwhelming willpower.
In the game
But back to the game. Eintracht’s team showed great effort from the start, hunting the opponents down with two men whenever they gained possession. That was pressing at its best. It was surely not a great game to watch in terms of offensive play, a lot of unsuccessful passes, bad attacking moves and hardly shots on goal on both sides. But the attitude in our team was definitely out there, and as it is kind of a derby and a lot was on the cards the atmosphere was heated and tense. The first half was surely ours, despite not scoring, but it made hope that this might turn out good after all. Still – the Funkel antis booed at half time when it was still 0-0, and first ‘Funkel out!’ chants echoed through the ground, followed by boos of the Funkel backers.
I was stunned by this attitude of the fans, something I had never come across during nearly 30 years of following Frankfurt. There was a highly hostile atmosphere towards the manager who had brought this club to the top flight in 04/05 and improved the final outcome in every season since:
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Season
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League
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Table
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Points
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Other
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2004/05
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2. Bundesliga
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3.
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61
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Promotion
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2005/06
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1. Bundesliga
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14.
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36
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German Cup final v Bayern (0-1), runners up
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2006/07
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1. Bundesliga
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14.
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40
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UEFA Cup until incl. group stage(via German cup final, Bayern->CL)
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2007/08
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1. Bundesliga
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9.
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46
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Support your local football team
 Karlsruhe started strongly after the break and it still remained a game that was exciting purely out of tension and physical fight and attitude. After 61 minutes our injured skipper Amanatidis was brought on for the Austrian Korkmaz who had shown ambition but also lack of game practice. Surely the return of the captain would be a boost for the team as he is a sorely missed leader when he’s out of action (unfortunately he will now not be back until after the winter break).
Then I was stunned again by our supporters. Markus Steinhöfer was brought on after 76 minutes for Fenin, and he was welcomed by a cacophony of boos from the fans. Why, you ask? Well they wanted Caio on the pitch and took this chance to once again diss our manager. At this crucial stage of the game they preferred to completely alienate Steinhöfer rather than support him, and they polluted the atmosphere even more. I could not believe it.
On the edge
Matters got worse. The ever so lovely Maik Franz (NOT), a player who is as dirty as one can get and who also has a history with Amanatidis (who claimed that Franz uses highly unfair tricks and fouls) – this man brought Karlsruhe one goal up. Even worse he did so with only eight minutes to go. And he obviously ran stright towards the Frankfurt stand to celebrat, hoping to stir up some hostile reaction from the fans. That came, but – guess what – not against the Karlsruhe player but – of course - against our manager. ‘Funkel out! Funkel out!’ – the new number one chant of some of the support.
Was that it then? Not only the game but also Funkels future was at stake I felt. It was a major setback but luckily it did not last long. Only two minutes later a Steinhöfer free kick somehow found Liberopulos who got the ball to Koehler – he netted and achieved what no one would have expected after this devastating goal against us just minutes before!
The diva strikes back
 It was just one of those games. Suddenly the eagles felt that there was more in the game for them, and I highly respect them for not giving up and fighting until the final whistle. They were awarded in the finest way possible. Despite Karlsruhe having also chances in between even to get the second goal the diva from the river Main once again claimed the ever so important happy end for herself. No scriptwriter could have plotted this, no director directed this, these are the stories of football, and once again the tale was told in Frankfurt.
In the 93rd minute (!) a long ball came into the KSC box and somehow our skipper Amanatidis (see picture above!) got to it and no one was quite sure how but he managed to put it in the net. The whole place went ballistic. Shortly after the ref called it a day, and the players and everyone from the bench buried our captain underneath them. The stadium was a madhouse. The first and so important win of the season was in the bag. And lots of drinks to celebrate this massive win were waiting ;-)
Bad aftertaste
Well, what can I say? This game was highly emotional for me, as I went back to see my team, to meet my friends and to see this not so fantastic game with this ever so fantastic outcome. But I experienced some developments within our supporters that I am not too sure about. Don’t get me wrong, I clearly understand that fans pay a lot of money and go through a lot of troubles to support the team. And for a lot of us it’s much more than just some football team, it affects us in our day to day life. But - we used to be such a great unit, the best support in the league, at home and away from home. It is sad that these days seem over, that there is a split mentality, and that individuals become more important than what is going on on the pitch. And it is uncertain that the stir will not come back even if we gain points from now on and meet our ambitions of becoming a strong upper mid table team. I just would hope that the manager is treated with more respect and not insulted like we were still in the middle age.
By the way: Markus Steinhöfer – who was so ‘warmly’ welcomed by the crowd when replacing Fenin – was involved in the setup of both goals. Not such a bad change after all by the manager.
My friends, to say it with Doris Day: que sera sera, what will be will be, the future’s not our’s to see, que sera sera. One thing is for certain though, we’ll keep following Frankfurt and we’ll continue to keep you all in the loop.
Sincerely yours,
Schobberobber
corner@schobberobber.com
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Hoffenheim plays good soccer and even took the lead in the league after 11 matches, way in front of Bayern and the others. In the first 11 matches, they scored 31 goals, more than any league-climber before in history! Still, their success is not too surprising, as they are financed by a billionaire, who made his money with computer software. They bought lots of young players – some of them made themselves famous in summer at the Olympic Games in Bejing, Obasi for example played for Nigeria. In summer 2004, when we were looking for a new coach after the relegation (and finally found Funkel), we first tried to get Rangnick. But he wasn’t interested, he went to Schalke and later on to Hoffenheim, where he started in 2006 in third league and now has one of the best teams in German soccer. The billionaire’s politics are seen controversially. He does not seem to be a real Abramovic (who “bought” Chelsea) but invests lots of money in his home club – a dream many of us may have had as a child, too. Still, people are not fond of seeing how he buys tradition and success – and other teams with lots of fans don’t have a fair chance against it.
After the Hoffenheim-match, there was a break of two weeks due to the World Cup qualification-matches of the national teams. Some of us thought, the time might be ideal to change the coach, but Mr. Bruchhagen kept his faith in Funkel and we didn’t change anything. After the break, it went on even worse. We lost 0:2 against Leverkusen after an awful match without fighting and without any courage. That was probably the lowest point in the last few years.
The next match in Cottbus started lousy. The really dreadful team Energie Cottbus controlled the match and scored two early goals. They could have scored even more, but either we were lucky or Nikolov (who had made some mistakes in the matches before) saved. Then a great goal by Fink, s 25-meter-shot into the corner of the goal brought us back into the match. In the second half, we were the better team. To be honest, after the match in Wolfsburg it was the only time this season that we were good or even better for more than only 10 minutes. Fenin and Liberopoulos (his header on the picture) scored their goals and we managed to gather two victories in a row.
Demichelis after a wing by former Bayern-player Steinhoefer) to get some points in the end. Klose and Ribery (picture below: Ochs wins a duel agauinst the ingenious French national player) switched the match like we did 4 days before in Cottbus. Before the match, all the fans were silent for some minutes to console. A Frankfurt-fan was murdered some days ago and they all showed, that they were still with him. An impressing moment which showed one more time, that there is more in the world than soccer.
The first game we attended was in Cologne. About 90 minutes from Frankfurt by train and being a rival team that had made its way back into the first division I was excited only not to travel to the game but for the game itself. We had attended a game before in Cologne but this time I was going to be sitting among the Eintracht fans. Note I did say sitting. There is an option even for the away game to get standing tickets but as I was traveling with my daughter I wanted to make sure we were able to sit down. I bought my tickets through the Eintracht Online Ticketing as they are allocated so many tickets for the fans who want to attend the away games. Travel from Frankfurt with the ICE train to Cologne was very easy. Upon arriving at the main train station things got a little more complicated but we found the people of Cologne very helpful in guiding us in the right direction to get to the stadium. Now once we departed the main train station we went onto a streetcar that would take us directly to the stadium.
The fans for the home team were everywhere but even more amazing were the number of Frankfurt fans. Upon arriving at the stadium we had a short walk to make it to our seats. First through the security which was very controlled in the Eintracht Fan curve. We made our way to our seats and even though we had been here before I was very impressed with the stadium itself. Unlike most soccer stadiums the stadium in Cologne is square but also a very impressive stadium. The atmosphere I feel I can almost compare to that of the Eintracht at home. It was very positive and sitting among fellow Eintracht fans made the game here even more exciting. At times the fans of Eintracht were louder than the fans of Cologne and the cheering for both teams only took a break during halftime. Well the game did not have the excitement we had hoped and we left a 1-1 tie. Hey a point in the standings is a point in the standings right? Now it was time to make our way back to Frankfurt. The streetcars leaving the stadium to get to the main train station, well lets just say I did not know that you could get so many people into them. It was a pleasure to get off at the main train station and from there we got something to eat and waited for the train to take us home. The trip hope was funny as the train conductor was making their announcements you could hear the Eintracht fans singing their songs, there was even a time were the train conductors joined in. Way too funny.
Now the following week we were headed to Wolfsburg. Once again we took the train and it was about a 3 hour train ride. It was cool to see as we made our stops outside of Frankfurt that more and more Frankfurt fans were getting on the train. The Germans seem to have this travel by train thing down to a science. Well any way we arrive in Wolfsburg and though the station is small (no way for me to get lost) we start making our way to the stadium. The stadium is about a 20-30 minute walk from the train station. And on this day the weather was good so the walk was nice. It was real easy to find the way also as all you had to do was follow the crowd. We crossed over a bridge and from there you can see Wolfsburg stadium. One of the better looking stadiums I have seen. The area around the stadium also really impressed me. They had this huge park with this huge lake that offered waterskiing and wake boarding with a pull cable. I had never seen this before in Germany and there were plenty of people participating in it.
We made our way to our seats. Now for these tickets I bought them directly from the Wolfsburg website as it was possible to get tickets direct on the middle field line. And of course it would be great to add some Black and Red colors to lake of Green and white fans we were sitting among. Go Eintracht J. The seats were perfect and even cooler our Greek Forward Anamatidis came over and greeted my daughter and me as I had interviewed him a few days before. Ok so we were among the Wolfsburg fans and I noticed how many empty seats were in the stadium and how small the stadium is. I started talking to a Wolfsburg Season ticket holder in front of me and he was very helpful in sharing information about the stadium. It holds about 30,000 which to me coming from Frankfurt was a shock but he then also told me how small the city of Wolfsburg is. Once again the game ended in a 1-1 tie and the game itself was not so exciting. We made our way home and I talked to my daughter about the games we had attended. We both agree it was a great experience and that the people in both cities had made the experience a very positive one.