Eintracht Frankfurt defeat Glasgow Rangers on penalties to win Europa League Final

Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)

Eintracht Frankfurt won their first European trophy in 42 years following their 5-4 victory on penalties over Glasgow Rangers in the Europa League Final in Seville after the match finished 1-1 after extra time.

No stadium in Europe would have been able to hold all the Rangers fans that travelled to Seville for the Europa League final. Indeed Seville opened up a second stadium in their city to show televised coverage on large screens to the vast majority of the 100,000 travelled who weren’t lucky to get hold of one of the official 9,500 tickets for the final. The last time Rangers were in a European Final was in Manchester in 2008 where they lost to Zenit St Petersburg in the UEFA Cup Final. Before that you had to go back in time 50 years to the European Cup Winners Cup Final in 1972 when they won their only European trophy to date. Everywhere you looked in Seville you saw a sea of blue and orange with fans travelling from as far away as Australia and New Zealand just to see the match.

Eintracht Frankfurt fans also travelled in significant numbers to Seville as their fans hoped to emulate their team of 1980 who won the UEFA Cup on away goals in the two-legged final against fellow German side Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Rangers did not seem daunted about playing Frankfurt who finished 11^th Bundesliga, especially as they had already knocked out two German sides en route to the final who had finished considerably higher in the league, namely Borussia Dortmund in second place and RB Leipzig in fourth.

Seville lived up to its nickname as the “Frying Pan of Spain” with temperatures reaching a scorching 40 degrees during the day of the match. Even by the time the final kicked off at 21:00 local time the temperature was still in the high 20s. The final was a tense affair played in very sticky conditions and of course the atmosphere from both sets of fans in the stadium was immense.

Frankfurt looked the better team in the first half but there were not many clear cut chances. The match remained at stalemate until a slick move was finished off by Joe Aribo in the 57^th minute which stunned Frankfurt and would have taken the roof off the stadium if it had one! The Rangers fans went mad and knew the dream of a first major title in 50 years was on.

Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)

The dream lived on for about 12 minutes until Colombian striker Rafael Borré hammered home in the 69th minute to make it 1-1 on the night. The heat was draining on both sets of players as well as on the fans in the stadium -UEFA had to apologize after the match for there not being enough water available in the stadium for fans who were watching the game in extremely hot conditions.

The match went over into 30 minutes of extra time and the trophy looked set to be heading to Glasgow when just two minutes from time the Scottish side had a glorious chance to seal the victory. However Frankfurt keeper Kevin Trapp dived across his goal and managed to save a point black shot with his legs from Kevin Trapp.

Trapp became the hero again in the penalty shoot-out by saving again with his legs when Aaron Ramsey hit his shot straight down the middle.