Frankfurt out to disrupt superpowers again
A 6-1 defeat on Friday and the player who led you to this point joining another club rather than boarding the plane to Helsinki on Tuesday. For most clubs, such a buildup to a UEFA Super Cup final might be debilitating.
But, according to Eintracht Frankfurt goalkeeper Kevin Trapp, neither defeats nor news of Filip Kostic's imminent move to Juventus will shake the team's belief.
"Of course it's a shame because he made history with the club. He was a hero in the Europa League. But we have a team that are capable of winning and producing good performances without Filip," Trapp said, before admitting that "it's still a decision that hurts."
Frankfurt have coped with plenty of high-profile painful departures in recent years. Coach Niko Kovac had already agreed to join Bayern Munich before the German Cup final win of 2018, while the departures of devastating attacking trident Sebastien Haller, Luka Jovic and Ante Rebic after the Europa League semifinal run that followed the next year forced another rebuild.
They came through that to win last season's Europa League under the radar. But, just as they were when they were hammered by Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich on Friday night, the Eagles will be significant underdogs against Champions League winners Real Madrid.
Weight of football history
This is Real's eighth Super Cup final since the competition's inception in 1972, and Frankfurt's first. The Spaniards had already claimed six of their 14 European Cups/Champions leagues by then, the fifth of those the legendary 1960 final, where Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo di Stefano fired Real to a 7-3 win against Eintracht in front of an official crowd of more than 127,000 at Hampden Park, Glasgow.
That game, the record crowd and the performances of Real's foreign-born stars is widely viewed as a seismic moment in football history. At the time, Frankfurt's players still worked day jobs and the Bundesliga's inception was still three years away, while Real were professional and bringing in talent from overseas.
In a film released by the club on the eve of the Super Cup game, Frankfurt players from the time refer in hushed tones to "Das Spiel des Jahrhunderts" ("The game of the century") and "Das Duell gegen die Götter in Weiss"("The duel against the gods in white").
The first repeat of the fixture since then comes at a time when the tectonic plates of football continue to widen the gap between the haves and have-nots of Europe that narrowed somewhat after Real's early dominance of the competition in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner acknowledged his side are up against it as a result, but that doesn't faze them.
"This is the reward for our incredible season, to face a Real Madrid side that have incredible quality and last season knocked out some of the best teams in Europe," he said on Tuesday. "What we proved in the Europa League last season is that there's always a chance and it's the same tomorrow. We're going to play with confidence because we know what we're capable of."
In the hours before the game, Barcelona, beaten by Frankfurt in the quarterfinals last year, continued to be linked to multimillion-euro deals for players while seemingly refusing to honor the contracts of their existing ones. More proof, if it were needed, that the rules are different for those with an established position at the Champions League (or Super League) top table.
Together on and off the pitch
On Wednesday, and when the draw for the Champions League takes place on August 25, the team that came 11th in the Bundesliga last term will stand shoulder-to shoulder with that elite. Though it's true that the game has more sheen and novelty to Frankfurt than to Real, the fact the German side is likely to bring four or five times as many fans to the city is representative of the link forged between pitch and terrace. And the feeling the good times could end soon, as they have before.
"I've heard that there will probably be around 10,000 Eintracht fans here to support us again tomorrow. They're not here for sightseeing, they're here to support us and we have to do our best to give them reason to celebrate again," goalkeeper Kevin Trapp told DW.
The strength of feeling between the club's management, staff, players and fans has been an overarching theme throughout Frankfurt's rise from the doldrums. As recently as 2010-11, they were relegated to the second division while Real finished behind Barcelona in La Liga and lost to the Catalans in the Champions League semifinals.
Frankfurt's willingness to sell Kostic, and his desire to move, on the eve of a game that clearly means plenty to the club is a further demonstration of how far the likes of the Spanish giants have moved away from even traditionally big clubs like Frankfurt.
But, as Trapp said: "We weren't given this game as a gift, we earned it." While money talks, it doesn't yet always win. Just ask Barcelona.
