You made an impression.

The Frankfurt Eintracht and with it a mass of football fans took the opportunity to further polish the reputation of the Hessian Bundesliga club on the international stage in the encounter with one of the most prominent teams in the world.

Marc Heinrich

sports editor.

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Thousands of supporters populated the streets and squares of Barcelona and provided the atmospheric support from the stands in a duel with the four-time Champions League winner on Thursday evening.

The atmosphere at the Camp Nou sometimes felt like a home game for the Eintracht pros, so loud were the shouts that cheered their actions.

The approval played its part in the fact that the Frankfurt team surpassed themselves in terms of sport and caused a big surprise in the second leg against Barça.

They came to a 3-2 triumph to move into the semi-finals of the Europa League after a 1-1 draw in their first meeting.

The next opponents waiting there are West Ham United.

"No one expected that"

The goals for the sensational coup were scored by Filip Kostic (3rd, 68th minute) and Rafael Borré (37th), for Barcelona Sergio Busquets (90th +1) and Memphis Depay (90th +9) scored in a thrilling finish.

"No one expected that.

Everyone thought Barcelona would shoot us out of the stadium," said goalkeeper Kevin Trapp on RTL.

"It's a huge disappointment," admitted Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez.

"Eintracht Frankfurt was better, especially in the first half.

We tried in the second half.

But we weren't good enough.”

600 guests had previously accepted an invitation from Eintracht to a reception at Poble Espanyol, an open-air museum.

The last time there was a comparable party before an important match was in Berlin in 2018.

"You all know how it ended four years ago," said board spokesman Axel Hellmann, alluding to the DFB Cup victory, the slogan for the duel with Barca.

"We take this very special atmosphere and energy from the corner to the top and transfer it to the team." Peter Fischer put it similarly: "We have the same situation as four years ago, everyone is predicting a victory for the opponent. Exactly that won't happen. We'll take our chance," prophesied the club president. No sooner said than done.

From the start, both sides started with speed and without restraint, as if they wanted to bring about the decision in no time at all.

Eintracht, who came dressed all in white, could be much happier with their start.

She took the lead in the third minute.

Eric Garcia knocked Jesper Lindstrom from behind in the penalty area.

Referee Manual Dias (Portugal) immediately decided on a penalty – and was not swayed by angry protests from the men in the pink and blue striped shirts.

Kostic immediately put the ball under his arm and demonstrated that he is ready to take on the burden of responsibility.

The Serb kept his nerve.

He saw that Marc-André ter Stegen decided to go for the right corner and threw the ball past him into the net with great force - the cheers of the Frankfurt supporters broke out uncontrollably in the stadium.

One of Oliver Glasner's wishful thinking had not come true: he could not muster Djibril Sow.

The Swiss wasn't even in the squad.

A stress test in the morning was unsatisfactory.

The knee injury, which was said to be a ligament strain that he sustained against Freiburg on Sunday (1:2), could not be gotten under control by the team's doctors in the short time available.

In his place, captain Sebastian Rode started, who moved up from the defense as a six to Kristijan Jakic's side.

As expected, Almamy Toure replaced the suspended Brazilian Tuta in the back three on the right.

But Xavi, the Catalans coach, wasn't free of worries either.

Piqué, one of his leaders, was out with a hip problem.