Raptor

March 1998 (1)

March would be the Month of the Truth. Any promotion hopes would be confirmed or killed off in the coming weeks, and the DFB Pokal run would also resume, even though it was expected to end at the first post-winterbreak hurdle.

On the 7th of March, Frankfurt left it late to beat Unterhaching, but Sobotzik's 81st minute strike wasn't any less deserved for it. Much to the home side's delight, many of their fellow promotion hopefuls dropped points, most of them because they played each other. The gap was still 9 points, but none of the top-3 seemed invincible anymore, and that would only add to the pressure put on all of them.

Then the glorious 14th of March... Borussia Mönchengladbach were 4th in the Bundesliga, and odds-on favourites to reach the last four of the German Cup. But when they left the Waldstadion in the early evening of that Saturday, they were utterly subdued. They had been torn apart in every respect. Even an early Gladbach goal couldn't stop Frankfurt, who had the ball in the back of the net four times in the ten minutes leading up to half time. One of those efforts was wrongfully ruled out for offside, but the other three stood. Claudio, Sobotzik and again Claudio had more than cancelled out Juskowiak's opener, and in the second half, it was more of the same, up until the goalscoring that is. Frankfurt's dominance only resulted in one more goal, through Frank Scharpenberg, but no one cared about that. The team had secured a famous victory, and were rewarded with a semi final trip to league leaders, European and World Champions Borussia Dortmund.

Raptor

March 1998 (2)

Still on a high, the squad travelled to Leipzig, to take on local side VfB, third placed and therefore Frankfurt's primary target. After falling behind early on, Eintracht turned things around through Ekstrom and Claudio (2x), getting their third goal from the penalty spot after a foul that saw the Leipzig goalkeeper sent off. Even then, the home side didn't lay down and die, but scored a second to make the final five minutes a lot more tense than De Vries & Co would've liked. In the end, the three points were on the board though, and the gap to the promotion slots was reduced to six points...

Out of the blue, Claudio had been called up to the Brazil U21 squad, where he'd played a decent match before returning to Frankfurt in time for the home game against Nürnberg, ranked right above Eintracht. Another must-win game then, altough every league game between now and the end of the season effectively would be labelled that way.

Another early scare, another comeback and another red card for the opposition later, a 4-2 final score was on the board, the surprise being that Claudio wasn't among the goalscorers. Such was his status now, after only a couple of months in Germany, that the big clubs were starting to take notice of him. Another reason for Frankfurt to go up this season, or face losing their star players.

De Vries felt like he always had back in Emden...

Raptor

April 1998

Ultimately, the season looked set to end in disappointment. April wasn't Eintracht's month, as it started with a needless 1-0 defeat at Fortuna Köln. Even though lowly ranked Gütersloh were on the receiving end of a Nordic thrashing (3 goals from Heidenstrom and Ekstrom), any doubts about promotion hopes being dead and buried vanished after Olaf Schreiber's second half double led table toppers Uerdingen to a scarcely deserved 2-0 home win over Frankfurt. The only way to save the season now, was to eliminate Dortmund in the Cup.

With promotion out of the question, De Vries granted Sobotzik his request of being transfer-listed, and his heart didn't seem to be in it anymore at home to Mainz either, which was a key factor in the 1-0 defeat that didn't bode well ahead of the Cup semi.

It also didn't help Tskhadadze, Kostadinov and Ekstrom were all away on international duty, though no less than a dozen Borussia players had the same status. Still, in a 25+ man squad, one has more options to rotate a bit.

Veteran wingback Michael Zorc opened the score in the 8th minute, just 60 seconds after an earlier effort by Heiko Herrlich was ruled out for offside. Dortmund continued to dominate until the break, at which point Frankfurt changed both tactics and approach. Route one football would have to save the day.

Herrlich wasn't to be denied his goal, and on the hour, he struck to make it 2-0. Surely that was that? Enter second half substitute Thorsten Flick. He was at the heart of the Frankfurt revival that forced an unexpected extra time, after successful strikes from Scharpenberg (65) and Sobotzik (82). On 100 minutes, Flick was cynically kicked off the pitch though, and Eintracht's new-found composure vasnished without a trace. In the first minute of the second period of extra time, Herrlich set up Freund to give Dortmund a renewed lead, one they wouldn't surrender again. Game over, cup over, season over.

Raptor

May 1998

A 3-0 win at Hannover meant it wasn't until a dismal and frustrating 1-1 home draw against St. Pauli that promotion became mathematically impossible. When it finally did, it immediately made key players Kostadinov, Weber, Ekstrom and Sobotzik available on a free transfer, due to their non-promotion release clauses. Marek Penska had an identical clause, but then, he'd been surplus to requirement for a long time.

Frankfurt had gambled and lost.

Raptor

May 1998 (2)

The season ended with a 2-0 defeat at Meppen, and a last appearance in front of a lower number of home fans than had been the case during the better days after the winter break, when promotion still seemed possible, and the cup run was ongoing. It made manager and board wonder how many supporters could be classed as fair weather fans. Ok, ultimately, 8th place (and a pathetic £22,000 prize money) wasn't what the club wanted, but at times, it had shown enough promise to have confidence in next season. How fickle supporters really are might well become visible next term.

For now, the main priority was to convince those released from their contract under the non-promotion clause to stay on for another campaign. Weber and Kostadinov agreed, Sobotzik refused. Days after the season officially ended, five clubs, including three from the Bundesliga, offered him a contract. Shockingly, Sobotzik turned down the likes of Werder Bremen and 1860 München for newly-crowned second Bundesliga champions Fortuna Düsseldorf, for half the salary Eintracht offered him to stay. Not the best of career moves, most people agreed.

De Vries, meanwhile, showed nine unwanted players the door, and transfer-listed Christoph Dengel, who had not lived up to expectations. The board might have been surprised at a couple of releases, but De Vries wanted to cut the number of non-EU players at all cost. They restricted his selection options, and left Frankfurt with a higher wage bill than desired.

You can't cut your squad by up to a dozen players without replacing them though, so a busy summer in the transfer market awaited.