Petrus must be a Eintracht fan.

The supporters of the European Cup winner waited two, maybe even three hours, bravely trying to ignore the rain, cheering for thunder and lightning, but when the parade with the team finally, finally reached Sachsenhausen on its way from the airport to the Römer , if it is dry, the sun even shines through the clouds.

A parade, everyone is learning at this moment, has the weather gods on its side, but they also learn that a triumphal procession is a fleeting phenomenon.

There!

The trophy!

There!

The players!

Isn't that Axel Hellmann?

Shouts, yells, the beginning of a song, cell phones held up, then those who kept their nerves the night before at decisive moments in Seville, who triumphed over the Scots, are already over.

Matthew Trautsch

Coordination report Rhein-Main.

  • Follow I follow

Rainer Schulz

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

Manfred Koehler

Head of department of the Rhein-Main editorial team of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

Shortly after 6 p.m., the motorcade started moving at the airport.

Coach Oliver Glasner holds the trophy at the front of the first car.

The first fans are already lined up at the airport and in the city forest.

The motorcade has to stop again and again because everyone wants a selfie, an autograph or just a handshake or a hug.

A veteran car also rolls along.

In it Karl-Heinz Körbel, Anthony Yeboah and Alex Meier, who are happy with the current team about the great success in Seville.

Waiting for unity

Hajo Kraft has come from Ober-Ramstadt with his ten-year-old son Alexander.

Of course, the filius was allowed to stay up until the penalty shoot-out the night before, he survived German, sports and music at school on Thursday morning.

Now the two are already sitting outside in the Café Wacker seats while the team is still approaching, but maybe they'll come faster than expected, Alexander keeps pulling his father to the sidewalk - look down the street to see if he's already there there is something to see.

Others are more patient, a family from Hainburg has found a parking space on Schweizer Strasse and is calmly awaiting the parade with a pizza on their knees sitting on the rear bumper.

The wait for unity is long in Sachsenhausen, but not boring, the children play football, the adults sing, technical things want to be said like "that won't take another 42 years", memories are dug out, "I was in Rostock, that was the worst", the way to the final is gone through again, "they swept Barcelona off the pitch", it's a family celebration in white T-shirts and dark trousers.

Black and white was never as colorful as on this big evening.

The night before, many had been up and about in Frankfurt.

Shortly before midnight it was heard on Wednesday evening: the relief roared out from more than 50,000 throats.

For almost three hours, the fans of Frankfurt Eintracht feared for their team's victory at the public viewing in the Waldstadion.

For hours they waved flags, ignited bengalos, shouted until they got hoarse, sang, cursed, trembled and presumably prayed too.

Then came redemption and a tremor in the stadium.

In this order.

Then that night, even before the Eintracht heroes lifted the Europa League trophy in Seville after beating Glasgow Rangers, Frankfurt was gripped by a collective party frenzy, which the city center has only seen so far after the German World Cup experienced victory in 2014.

On the plant ring, individual honking cars turned into parades, and shortly after midnight so many people streamed across the Zeil that it seemed like it was prime time for shopping.

Eintracht songs in all variations and from all throats resounded through the night on Stephanstrasse: "Black and white as snow - that's the SBU," hooted two teenage girls who were probably drunk with joy, too.

They only know Eintracht’s last international title triumph to date from the stories of their parents, who were still children themselves back then, in the distant year 1980, when they won the UEFA Cup, but they were all the more certain now: “We made history.” There it was the night of nights, which was to be followed by a grandiose day, is far from over.