Being a fan, this blissful madness
European Cup this year, the first final since 1980. You have to think about it: 42 years is half a lifetime if things go well. One can call this finale epochal and would not exaggerate, the importance of the game exceeds anything that the vast majority of fans have ever experienced and will. That’s why the loud crackling, these constantly wet eyes, the ever so restless hands. It’s a tension that has built up over weeks and yet stretches back decades. In Barcelona, against West Ham, and much earlier, in Meppen, against Burghausen. As if all fans had hoped for something together for so long, years, decades, that it actually manifested itself before their eyes, suddenly tangible and only an arm’s length away: a European Cup. This year.
You see that meaning in people’s eyes. The glow, the tears, the looks that look for support in each other. Being a fan, this blissful madness. The thousands in Barcelona, a sea of outstretched arms, in front of which Filip Kostic stood and smiled. Of the Final whistle against West Ham, at which, as if on command, adults began to cry. Fans who dug small pieces of grass out of the field during the storm and then carried them through the evening in the palm of their hands, carefully, like the treasures they are.
We give you our hearts and you give us victory
Eintracht Frankfurt is in the European Cup final, that would have been a sentence that would have made little sense for many years. A lie, a bad joke, a pipe dream that would have been ridiculous to dream. But reality? Certainly not. Eintracht Frankfurt was all too often the club you hung your heart on and got back a 0-0 draw in the Bundesliga. We give you our hearts and you give us victory, that’s what the fans have been singing for so long. The second part of the sentence often remained a pious wish. And now?
Frankfurt is the city of deep breathing. The incredulous looks. The city of head scratching, of the question: What actually happened? – which remains without a real answer. Because what happened if not something inexplicable, unpredictable? The club has turned itself upside down within a few years, no less, and because no one saw it coming, the life of its fans with it. The city of the rocky road. Of the still. The one declared dead. The Run Mijat Run.
The fans have been waiting for the cup win for 30 years, and that’s half a lifetime if things don’t go so well. Time that slips between your fingers without you realizing it. But that’s how it is. You go up the stadium stairs and you go back down them. Sees his people, gets to know new ones, others go, days, weeks, years, life here and there. Loses here and wins there. Watches the games, annoys and rejoices, talks to loved ones, father, mother, friends, children, have you seen the unity?
One more day, European Cup this year, the crackling is getting louder
And of course they have. That’s how life comes out of it, with a common passion, something that’s there like a railing and that you can hold on to, even if the path you’re walking becomes uneven at times. And he often is, in life and in sports. Rostock, Heynckes, a collective trauma. Descents, ascents, years like in slow motion, and then run, Mijat, run. A goal that divided the lives of so many fans into a before and an after. Before, when everything you experience now seemed impossible. And then, when Frankfurt was suddenly the city with the trophy. When all the waiting was suddenly worth it, just like that. The city of dreamers who had already forgotten how to dream. And in which it doesn’t seem impossible that soon, very soon, the whole city will come together again on the Römerberg.
One more day, European Cup this year, the crackling is getting louder. Frankfurt is the city of anticipation, of humming songs to oneself. City of fear and hope, of shivers down your spine, of knocking on wood, city of good luck charms and match day rituals, of furtive glances, can that really happen? A city of fever, like in a trance, there are two of every fan these days because everyone is on their own. Eintracht Frankfurt is in the European Cup final, a dopamine shower that has become a thought, hundreds of thousands of times a day. A state of emergency against which nothing helps.