Violence overshadows CL failure
Proud unity grumbles about fans and authorities
3/16/2023 7:28 am
Despite the failure in the round of 16, Eintracht Frankfurt rated the premiere season in the premier class as a success. Eintracht wants to experience the great football evenings on the international stage again in the next season. Only the fans are once again making negative headlines.
Eintracht Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner was able to accept the end of the Champions League round of 16, but not the riots of the fans. “I condemn all forms of violence and crime, no matter where and when it happens in the world, so I don’t approve of it,” said Glasner after the Bundesliga club’s 3-0 defeat at Italian top club SSC Naples.
When they returned to the team hotel, the Eintracht pros were greeted by a huge police force. Only a short time before, the security forces had ended renewed riots with water cannons. As reported by Italian media, Naples supporters had tried to get to the neighboring hotel, where a few hundred ultras from Frankfurt had stayed and were preparing to leave by bus. The Napoli ultras lit firecrackers and threw stones at the emergency services.
Already on Wednesday afternoon, the fans of both teams had fought street battles with the police in the city center. “Of course we noticed. It’s not a thing that belongs here. We can’t approve of that,” Frankfurt’s sports director Markus Krösche criticized the incidents, which formed an unworthy framework for the end of Hesse’s first Champions League season. Above all, the players again criticized the Italian authorities, who, after a legal stalemate, had banned ticket sales to people residing in Frankfurt/Main. Naples “did themselves a disservice by shutting out our fans,” said captain Sebastian Rode. Djibril Sow spoke of a “kindergarten”. Of course, “the fans were really missing”.
“Just a size too big for us”
Despite the clear defeat through the goals of top striker Victor Osimhen (45th + 2nd / 53rd minute) and Piotr Zielinski (64th / penalty), Glasner drew a positive balance of the trip to Europe. The end was “not a broken leg,” he said at DAZN: “We mustn’t forget that we are still in two competitions. We don’t have to be ashamed that we were eliminated from the Champions League in mid-March.”
The league leaders in Serie A, against whom the Hessians had already lost the first leg 0-2, is “simply a size too big for us”, said the Austrian, who is still on course for the European Cup in the league with the SGE and in the DFB Cup quarter-finals. In the club’s first premier class participation, the team “represented not only Eintracht, but all of Germany well”. The desire for another season in Europe’s elite class was great after the elimination. “Anyone who has played in the Champions League wants to stay at that level. You can tell that in the squad,” said national goalkeeper Kevin Trapp. And Sow added that despite the defeat, it could still be a “terrific season”.