It may sound harsh, but the fact that the Europa League final is between Eintracht Frankfurt and Glasgow Rangers may be bad for German football, but it’s good for the mood across Europe. The repeat of the 1960 European Cup semi-final – at the end of which Eintracht made it into their first international final – promises everything that the duel with a club founded in Fuschl am See, Austria, in 2009 could not have delivered.
30,000 fans followed Eintracht to Barcelona in the quarter-finals. At least as many are likely to try to flood the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan on May 18th. A lot that the Leipzig Red Bull branch would not even get together with generous special conditions. The game in Glasgow proved that impressively.
The Rangers provided the guests from Leipzig with 2,200 tickets for the duel in the Ibrox. That corresponds to a good five percent of the total stadium capacity. Actually a joke for a game of this dimension. And yet too much for RasenBallsport Leipzig. The Saxon group sold just over 1,000 tickets. But that’s not all the exposure: A planned and announced fan march from the central St. George’s Square to the stadium was canceled at short notice. The reason? Only a dozen or two dozen hikers showed up.
RB’s management team may be annoyed by the constant references to the history of the club, to the lack of co-determination opportunities for supporters, to the non-existent tradition and roots in Leipzig. It is precisely these discussions that they should have faced more decisively than ever before when they made it into the Europa League final.
Because, here’s the thing: Red Bull may have brought the long-awaited professional football to Leipzig with the “Rasenballern” – but even after ten years, RB Leipzig is nothing more than a nice pastime. An exciting event to take the kids to on the weekends or meet up with friends on Thursday evenings. But RB Leipzig is – and this is also the feedback from many city dwellers – not a matter of the heart. Not a passion for which you take three days off (or sick leave) to explore Europe sleep-deprived in cheap hotels and airports. Not a club for which the heart beats faster and bleeds.
So you can only thank the Glasgow Rangers warmly. That they saved RB Leipzig from the next oath of disclosure on the international stage. That they will color Seville blue-red and black-white together with the Frankfurters. And that they show that football feeds on its tradition after all.