Eintracht Frankfurt was founded on 8 March 1899 and has grown into one of German football's best-known traditional clubs. In 1959 the team won its only German championship to date, defeating Kickers Offenbach 5-3 after extra time in a final watched by 75,000 spectators in Berlin. That triumph opened the door to the European Cup, and the following season Eintracht reached the final in Glasgow, where they lost 7-3 to a legendary Real Madrid side inspired by Alfredo Di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskás. Still remembered as one of the greatest matches in the competition's history, that defeat remains Eintracht's best result in Europe's premier club competition.
Domestically Eintracht never regained the league title, though the club went on to win the DFB-Pokal five times, in 1974, 1975, 1981, 1988 and, most memorably, in 2018, when the team beat overwhelming favourites Bayern Munich 3-1 in the final. In continental competition, Eintracht's greatest success came in 1980, when they won the UEFA Cup after beating Borussia Mönchengladbach on the away-goals rule following a 3-2 defeat in the first leg and a 1-0 win at home.
More than four decades later, in 2022, Eintracht added a second European trophy, winning the Europa League after a run built around raucous away support that filled entire stadiums across the continent. The campaign culminated in Seville, where Eintracht beat Rangers on penalties after a goalless draw through extra time, sparking scenes of celebration among the tens of thousands of Eintracht fans who had travelled to Spain.
Known to their supporters as Die Adler (The Eagles), Eintracht have played their home matches since 1925 at the ground long known as the Waldstadion, on the southern edge of Frankfurt, now carrying the commercial name Deutsche Bank Park. The club is widely regarded as having one of the most passionate and vocal fan bases in German football, a reputation reinforced time and again by the scale and noise of its travelling support in European competition.