Eintracht Frankfurt

Club origins

The origins of the club go back to a pair of football clubs founded in 1899: Frankfurter Fußball-Club Victoria von 1899 – regarded as the original team in the club's history – and Frankfurter Fußball-Club Kickers von 1899. Both clubs were founding members of the new Nordkreis-Liga in 1909. These two teams merged in May 1911 to become Frankfurter Fußball Verein (Kickers-Victoria), an instant success, taking three league titles from 1912 to 1914 in the Nordkreis-Liga and qualifying for the Southern German championship in each of those seasons. In turn, Frankfurter FV joined the gymnastics club Frankfurter Turngemeinde von 1861 to form TuS Eintracht Frankfurt von 1861 in 1920. The German word Eintracht means 'harmony' or 'concord', and so Eintracht is the equivalent of United in English in the names of sports teams.

At the time, sports in Germany was dominated by nationalistic gymnastics organizations, and under pressure from that sport's governing authority, the gymnasts and footballers went their separate ways again in 1927, as Turngemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt von 1861 and Sportgemeinde Eintracht Frankfurt (FFV) von 1899.

Through the late 1920s and into the 1930s, Eintracht won a handful of local and regional championships, first in the Kreisliga Nordmain, then in the Bezirksliga Main and Bezirksliga Main-Hessen. After being eliminated from the national level playoffs after quarterfinal losses in 1930 and 1931, they won their way to the final in 1932 where they were beaten 2–0 by Bayern Munich, who claimed their first ever German championship. In 1933, German football was re-organized into sixteen Gauligen under the Third Reich, and the club played first division football in the Gauliga Südwest, consistently finishing in the upper half of the table and winning their division in 1938.

Eintracht picked up where they left off after World War II, joining the new first division Oberliga Süd. In 1946, Eintracht won the first Hessenpokal, and finished third in the Oberliga Süd a year later. In 1953, they would win the Oberliga Süd title, qualifying Eintracht for the German championship, though they did not make it to the final.

National champions and European Cup finalists

Former coach Paul Oßwald returned to the club for a third stint with Eintracht in 1958. In the 1958–59 season the club won their Oberliga again, qualifying for the 1959 German championship. Winning all six of the games in the group phase, Eintracht made it to the final with a perfect record; there, they would meet rivals Kickers Offenbach, the club that Oßwald joined from, and the runners up behind Eintracht in the Oberliga Süd. Frankfurt went on to win the final 5–3 after extra time, becoming German champions for the first and so far only time in front of 75,000 fans in Berlin's Olympiastadion.

As champions, Frankfurt would represent Germany in the 1959–60 European Cup, where they would come to international prominence. Having beaten BSC Young Boys and Wiener Sport-Club to make it to the semi-finals, they were drawn against Scottish champions Rangers, who were considered favourites, at least in Scotland – Rangers manager Scot Symon allegedly asked, "Eintracht, who are they?" before the game. Eintracht won the first leg 6–1 at home, in a performance described as the greatest in the club's history. They would score six more in the second leg at Ibrox, winning 12–4 on aggregate. After the game, the Rangers players gave their opponents a guard of honour as they left the pitch.

Eintracht would return to Glasgow for the final at Hampden Park, although they lost 7–3 to Real Madrid despite taking an early lead. The final was widely regarded as one of the best football matches ever played, remembered for a hat-trick by Alfredo Di Stéfano and four goals by Ferenc Puskás.

After their championship-winning year, Eintracht did not win the Oberliga again, though they were runners-up in 1961 and 1962. Both times they would finish second in the group phase of the German championship, missing out on the final.

Founding member of the Bundesliga

The side earned themselves a place as one of the original 16 teams selected to play in the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional football league, formed in 1963. Eintracht played Bundesliga football for 33 consecutive seasons, finishing in the top half of the table for the majority of them. In the inaugural season, Eintracht finished 3rd behind 1. FC Köln and Meidericher SV – the club has still never managed a better Bundesliga finish – and also reached the 1964 DFB-Pokal Final.

Eintracht finished in the top half of the Bundesliga every season until 1970–71. Although they didn't make it back to the European Cup, Eintracht did play in other non-UEFA European competitions, beating FK Inter Bratislava to win the 1967 Intertoto Cup in the last season of its original format. That year, they also reached the semi-final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, losing to Dinamo Zagreb.

Cup successes

From 1973 to 1981, Eintracht had arguably their most successful period of the Bundesliga era, winning three DFB-Pokals and the UEFA Cup. Many of the most iconic players from the club's history played during this era, such as Bernd Nickel, Charly Körbel, Bernd Hölzenbein, Jürgen Grabowski and Cha Bum-kun.