The anticipation of the Champions League premiere outshines the upcoming exertions at Eintracht Frankfurt. There are 17 games waiting in a few weeks.
Eintracht Frankfurt starts the English weeks: The Champions League home game against Sporting Lisbon on Wednesday (listen live from 6.35 p.m. on Sportschau.de) is the prelude to a real mammoth program that is scheduled until the World Cup break.
Enthusiasm versus Burden
“I said to the players: Boys, now is the best time this year,” said coach Oliver Glasner at the press conference after the Win against Leipzig (4-0). “Now it’s the Champions League, the first time in the history of Eintracht, the first time for many of our players and the first time for me too. If we don’t have joy, enthusiasm, excitement now, when?”
But with the enthusiasm comes the strain: Eintracht has to play four games in eleven days in September, everyday Bundesliga life with opponents Wolfsburg and Stuttgart alternates with Champions League celebrations against Lisbon and Marseille. Even the short breather at the end of the month does not apply to all players, because traditionally numerous Eintracht kickers are on the road with their national teams in Europe and the world during the international break.
“It’s really tingling”
From October there are then continuous English weeks – Bundesliga at the weekend, Champions League and Cup, in which the Eintracht Stuttgarter Kickers were drawn yesterday, during the week. The reason for the tight schedule is the Winter World Cup in Qatar, which is forcing the leagues to take an early winter break. The group phase of the Champions League will be completed at the beginning of November.
“It’s not always easy to perform every three days,” admitted Sebastian Rode after the Leipzig game. And then let yourself be infected by the euphoria: “It’s really tingling. On Wednesday there will be an absolute party.” However, Rode himself will have to watch: he is out with a muscle injury in his thigh, as Eintracht announced on Monday.
And then there’s the ambition to do better than last season, when there were rather sobering results in the Bundesliga between parties in the Europa League. Rode: “I am very optimistic that we will do well in both the Bundesliga and the Champions League.”
