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Invasion of Sevilla: Everything Towards the Europa League Final | Israel today

2022-05-17T11:27:01.141Z


More than 150,000 fans go to accompany the Frankfurt and Rangers on a journey towards the title at Ramon Sanchez Pijuan • For a game that will bring together two teams that were not taken into account at the beginning of the season


Sevilla is preparing for the invasion.

In the next two days, more than 150,000 Scottish and German football fans are expected to arrive in the city of southern Spain.

Most of them will arrive in the city without a ticket to the Europa League final, but nothing will stop them from investing quite a bit of money and flying for a good few hours, just to be a part of the celebration.

The Ramon Sanchez Fijuan Stadium will have 40,000 spectators tomorrow (Wednesday) evening, but only about 30,000 of them are fans of Glasgow Rangers and Eintracht Frankfurt.

Which means that about 120,000 fans of both teams will be in Sevilla - but will not enter the stadium!

The madness among the fans of these two teams, who no one gave them a chance to reach the final, breaks all records.

For two weeks now they have been thinking of nothing but this historic final.

Rangers and Frankfurt fans having a sing off in Malaga.

It's been calm here tonight so far, great to see ... @talkSPORT pic.twitter.com/EYRYVHQaLU

- Adrian Durham (@talkSPORTDrive) May 16, 2022

When the knockout stage of the Europa League kicked off in February, everyone was talking about Barcelona, ​​Dortmund, Leipzig, Sevilla, West Ham and Atlanta as favorites to win the title.

Frankfurt and Rangers?

No one took them into account then.

But Frankfurt, who finished the season in 11th place in the Bundesliga, and Rangers, only the Scottish runners-up, will not only play in the final, but the winner will also win a ticket to the Champions League home stage next season.

It is no coincidence that both Frankfurt and Glasgow talk about it being the most profitable game in the history of both clubs.

Because whoever wins will secure a cash prize of about 40 million euros.

But the significance of this finale is far greater than money.

This is a historic event.

Both Germany and Scotland claim it is the biggest game in the history of the two clubs.

Rangers was founded 150 years ago.

Only once has it won a European title, and that was in the club's 100th year, when Glasgow's Protestant team won the cup final holding Dynamo Moscow.

Exactly 50 years later, it stands for a game in which a victory will be much more prestigious, much more profitable and much more significant than that victory at Camp Nou.

Frankfurt also has one European degree in its 123 years of existence.

In 1980, they defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach in the final of the UEFA Cup. And even in this case, a victory on Wednesday night will be for the "Eagles" the greatest achievement in history.

Frankfurt players.

On the way to the greatest title in the history of the club ?, Photo: Getty Images

Unlike the Rangers, who have won countless titles in Scotland, as one of the two greats, along with Celtic, Frankfurt is not one of the greats of German football.

Where is it compared to Bayern Munich, Dortmund, Leverkusen and Mönchengladbach.

It won only one championship, in 1959, before the Bundesliga was founded. 

But what Frankfurt has is unprecedentedly loyal fans.

More than 100,000 of them have applied to purchase a ticket to the final in Seville and more than 50,000 are due to arrive in the capital of Andalusia.

The highlight was in the quarter-finals against Barcelona, ​​when the club received 300,000 requests for tickets to the away game!

Eventually about 40,000 traveled to the game, most of them managed to get organized on tickets, creating a homely atmosphere for the players at Camp Nou.

It was a surreal spectacle, with the Camp Nou having more Frankfurt fans than Barça fans - causing a huge storm at the Catalan club.

And the massive encouragement helped Frankfurt win 2: 3 and qualify for the semi-finals.

Frankfurt fans at the Camp Nou.

Barcelona was in shock, and rightly so, Photo: EPA

For some fans the task of getting to Barcelona was not an easy one.

Many of them had to take connecting flights through strange destinations, like Tunisia for example.

The main thing is to get to the game.

But if you thought Frankfurt fans were something special, then Rangers fans might outdo them.

In 2008, the Rangers qualified for the UEFA Cup final. The game against Zenit St Petersburg took place at Manchester City Stadium. True, a trip from Glasgow to Manchester is a relatively simple matter: three and a half hours by car in each direction. -200,000 Rangers fans!

This is a crazy record, which is unlikely to ever break: this is the largest amount of fans that accompanied a sports team to an away game.

So yes, there are quite a few parallel lines between Frankfurt and the Rangers, and not just because of the huge and jealous fan base that accompanies them everywhere, and also not just because of the fact that no one gave them a chance to reach the final.

Rangers players.

No one believed they would reach the final, Photo: AP

Both have recently lost legendary characters.

Jimmy Bell, the mythical Rangers farm man passed away earlier this month at the age of 69. He worked at the club for 36 years, under 11 different coaches.

Before that he was the bus driver of the group.

About two months ago, Jürgen Grabowski, the greatest Eintracht player of all time, who played for the team from 1965 to 1980, and won the 1974 World Cup with the German team, also passed away at the age of 77. 

Both teams have 47-year-old coaches, who have only come to them this season.

Dutchman Giovanni van Bronckhorst was appointed Rangers coach in November, after Steven Gerrard left in favor of the job offered to him at Aston Villa.

Oliver Glasner, who arrived this summer from Wolfsburg, may just be the second Austrian coach to win a European Cup.

The only one to do so far is Ernest Happel, who led Hamburg to a 1983 Champions League win.

Oliver Glasner.

On the way to being only the second Austrian coach to win a European Cup ?, Photo: Getty Images

Glasner claims he has no superstitions, and yet he has no plans to give up the sand pants he has won in victories over Betis, Barcelona and West Ham.

"On Friday he said, 'All I know is that I sent my lucky pants to the laundry.

I hope to get them back without tears ... ". By the way, Frankfurt will play in the final in an all-white outfit. The reason? With this outfit she defeated Bayern Munich in the German Cup final four years ago.

Van Bronckhorst from the other side knows how difficult the task in the final will be.

But he remembers that on the way to the final his team defeated both German runner-up Borussia Dortmund - with a stunning 2-4 away win - and Leipzig, who finished the league in fourth place.

And these are two much stronger teams than Frankfurt.

Rangers' story is even more amazing when you remember that only 10 years ago the team played in the fourth division in Scotland!

The club went bankrupt in 2012, disbanded and re-established, and began its journey anew in the fourth division, facing teams representing villages and small towns.

These were tough days, but Rangers fans did not abandon the team.

Almost every home game Ibrooks Park was filled with 50,000 spectators.

Yes, even in the fourth division.

It took the Rangers four years to return to their natural place in the major leagues and a year ago it even won the championship.

Steven Gerrard, in his first job as a coach, led the team to the 55th championship, the first in 10 years and most importantly - one that prevented the hated Celtic from completing 10 consecutive championships.

If Rangers win, it will be the Scottish team's first win of a European title since Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen won the 1983 FA Cup final against Real Madrid.

Yes, 39 years ago.

So everything is now drained for the final game in Sevilla, at the end of which only one team will celebrate a historic achievement - and also win a ticket to the prestigious Champions League.

Ansgar Knauf, the Frankfurt striker, said: "The last six months have been a dream come true. So many emotions and games that we will never forget."

And James Tabarnier, Rangers' English right-back, who is also the factory's top scorer (seven goals in 14 games), declared: "We believe in ourselves. If we reach the final, there is a reason for it. It is fate."

Were we wrong?

Fixed!

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Source: israelhayom

All sports articles on 2022-05-17

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