The European Cup is a football business that stirs Eintracht's imagination, as last Thursday's duel against FC Barcelona clearly showed.

In the past four years, the Frankfurters represented the German colors on the big stage three times, always with performances that earned them respect.

Marc Heinrich

sports editor.

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This season there are still two ways to qualify for an international competition.

On the one hand, if the Frankfurt team emerged as the winners from the current Europa League series.

Then they should even ran in the premier class.

To do so, however, they would first have to eliminate the Spanish stars in the second leg of the quarter-finals this Thursday.

"Very bitter defeat"

In addition, there is the chance to be eligible to start by performing in the Bundesliga table, whereby at least sixth place must result in the final calculation.

The prospect of reaching the goal this way became smaller on Sunday.

Oliver Glasner's team lost to SC Freiburg 1:2.

This brings Eintracht to 39 points after the 29th matchday and takes ninth place.

"It's a very bitter defeat," said the Frankfurt coach, "we made two mistakes that Freiburg took advantage of coldly."

Climate activists tie themselves to goalposts

Scenes of greater confusion took place on the pitch after just 120 seconds.

When Kevin Trapp wanted to take a shot, two speedsters rushed onto the field and tied themselves to the posts of the Frankfurt goal with cable ties.

The men wore T-shirts with the slogan "Last Generation - Stop the fossil madness".

It took a few minutes for security forces to step in and take the uninvited guests away.

It took a while until something really worth seeing happened.

Rafael Borré was the first to approach a goal with a shot that just missed to the right (10').

Hauge and Ansgar Knauff then tested SC goalkeeper Mark Flekken (16th, 17th), but did not carry out the attacks with consistency.

The failure to make it into the penalty area and then not to work with enough determination runs like a red thread through this season for Eintracht, which lacks a goal-getter who doesn't need to be asked twice.

Sow has to leave injured

Years ago, when it became apparent on the Bornheim slope that Vincenzo Grifo would develop into a formidable offensive force at FSV, the big neighbor let the opportunity of signing the German-Italian pass.

In the meantime, the 29-year-old has been promoted to the Squadra Azzurra as a national team player.

And on this evening, too, he proved that he has a first-class command of his profession.

He benefited from the opening goal for the Sportklub (27th) from the preliminary work by Roland Sallai, who had intercepted a bad pass from Evan Ndicka.

It was a disadvantage for the Frankfurters that they were only ten in action at the moment and had to compensate for a central gap;

Djibril Sow was treated on the sidelines.

The Swiss tried to return but was substituted by Glasner shortly afterwards.

Sow indicated that he had a problem with his right knee and the coach did not want to take any chances that the defensive strategist could fail for the million-euro match in Barcelona.

Sow is said to have sustained an injury to the inner ligament, the diagnosis is pending.

Glasner admitted that it was a tightrope walk to get the team in the mood for the comparatively more mundane everyday life in the league between the two highlight moments of their career.

But it commands respect from him, how the players, who lacked physical fitness, held out in the second half despite everything and thus (temporarily) lured Freiburg out of the reserve.

"I've seen a lot that was good," said Glasner.

Filip Kostic scored the equalizer after a sprint from the left, which Flekken couldn't hold, and finished (54').

Two minutes later, his next attempt was only centimeters short.

The opponent's response was just as impressive: Nils Petersen headed a Christian Günter free kick into the net to make it 2-1 for Freiburg (69');

it was his ninth career goal with which he foxed Eintracht.

This time it was of particular value because the supposed 2:2 was taken back by Kamada (86th) for offside after the intervention of the video assistant.

"We missed that little bit of luck today," concluded Rode after the tenth defeat of the season, which hurt.

Immediately in front of the Frankfurters are the in-form Cologne, Iron from Union and Hoffenheim.

There are now only five more opportunities to improve significantly compared to them.