The dream of Eintracht of the Champions League has collapsed.
It is difficult to find the right words for it.
Even undeniably correct terms such as sad, bitter and disappointing seem stale and inappropriate given the historical size of the missed opportunity and the circumstances of failure.
The fact that the team, known for their mentality, fails against Schalke, who has been relegated to the bottom of the table for weeks, and loses 3: 4, stunned. How the sports management commented on the Frankfurt accident as well. Sports director Fredi Bobic and trainer Adi Hütter didn't just find the right words, they found the completely wrong ones. The fact that both were aiming for fifth place, which was also a success, shows their callousness, which they revealed in the moments of their decisions to leave unity: Although they had valid contracts, although they were successful and respected, although they did would have made themselves immortal by entering the premier class in Frankfurt for the first time. But they considered the personal perspectives in Berlin and Gladbach to be more important than the present in Frankfurt,which had the features of an idyll. That may be legitimate, but it costs credibility. Which professional will still listen in the future when Bobic or Hütter explain to them that no individual is bigger than the club and demand subordination to the collective?
The fact that the team would show a negative reaction after Hütter's announcement of his departure was enormous, as the Rose case in Mönchengladbach showed just a few weeks earlier and as the Nagelsmann case in Leipzig confirmed in these weeks. Perhaps, under normal circumstances, Bobic would have released his on-the-go trainer immediately. But since he had helped trigger his departure through his, he could hardly do that.
Should we have asked the supervisory board to finally ask Bobic to release Hütter and, if he refused, to show the sports director the door with immediate effect? In retrospect, it would have been the right decision from Eintracht's point of view, but from that time it appeared to be an unreasonable risk. First, the unrest in the club was big enough, second, there was no guarantee that a quick fix would keep the team in good shape, and third, things could have gone well with Hütter.
The fact that things went wrong was not because the Austrian no longer worked seriously or because the players reacted by refusing to work to their disappointment at being let down by the coach. The only thing missing was the few percent of conviction and belief that help a team to succeed in close matches. In the 5: 2 against Union, the 4: 3 against Wolfsburg and the 2: 1 in Dortmund, the course of the game provided numerous arguments that Eintracht would draw or lose. But she won. Even with the weak performances in Gladbach and Leverkusen there were opportunities to find an emergency exit from the impending defeat. But it didn't work. Hutter's decision in favor of Gladbach and against Eintracht was not to blame for the failure of the Champions League project. But she reversed the momentumand made room for doubt, which then wreaked havoc.
In their anger, some Eintracht fans now count Bobic and Hütter to the camp of Super League operators, Champions League optimizers and locust investors, for whom capital optimization is more important than anything else. Which is exaggerated. They could show a little more sympathy for the situation of the club and their fans.