Almost five weeks left.

Then it's really over.

It would be a dream for Kevin Trapp and Mario Götze if they were on the ball for the last time in the outstanding football year 2022 on December 18th.

A few days before Christmas, the final of the soccer World Cup will take place in Qatar.

With Germany and the two Eintracht professionals in the team of national coach Hansi Flick?

Ralph Weitbrecht

sports editor.

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The way through the desert to Doha, the final destination, is long and arduous.

The past few months have been too.

Eintracht's successes are all the more impressive.

The winner of the Europa League has made it a class higher in the Champions League than a newcomer to the round of 16, in which there is a duel with SSC Napoli.

The home game against Darmstadt 98 is also a knockout game in the round of 16 in the national DFB Cup competition.

Off to Japan

And in the league?

There, after 15 match days and 27 points won, coach Oliver Glasner's team achieved the best Bundesliga record in the club's history at the time.

Time for fourth in the table to sit back and relax?

no way.

The day after the 1-1 draw in the Rhein-Main derby at neighbors Mainz 05, the Frankfurt travel company set off on the week-long official trip to Japan.

Glasner took 27 players to the Far East.

Instead of the six seconded national players - in addition to Trapp and Götze, the Croatian Kristijan Jakic, the Dane Jesper Lindström, the Swiss Djibril Sow and the Japanese Daichi Kamada are at the World Cup - include eight young talents from the U21, U19 and U17 as well as the two young professionals Mehdi Loune and Nacho to the Japan delegation.

Player number 28 is a special one: Makoto Hasebe.

The oldest Eintracht professional, who has been limited to a spectator role in recent weeks due to injury, flew to his home country before the team, where he has a special role as a brand ambassador for the Frankfurt club.

One of their leaders also played a special role in this extraordinary year of Eintracht: Captain Sebastian Rode.

His 45-minute appearance in the crucial Champions League group game at Sporting Lisbon will never be forgotten.

Anyone who has always wanted to learn something about will and passion only had to watch Rode.

The man from the Bergstrasse played the game of his life in Lisbon.

With a battered body plagued by numerous injuries.

Even now, since there are only two more friendly tests in Japan and against SV Sandhausen (December 2nd, venue not yet fixed) and Atalanta Bergamo (December 9th), Rode will stick his bones out.

Despite calf problems, the 32-year-old captain is part of the Frankfurt travel entourage, which flew to Tokyo early Monday afternoon.

Rode described it as "outstanding what we did in the first half of the season.

From the first day of the game, when we really got a kick out of it against Bayern, to today: we're in the round of 16 in the Champions League, we're in an international position in the Bundesliga, so that's exactly where we want to be in the end .

There is hardly anything better.” Goalkeeper Trapp confirmed: “This is the best calendar year Eintracht has seen in a long time.” It's not over yet.