Teams, tales and tips – a guide to the local game
Germany’s financial centre straddling the Main river, the self-styled ‘Mainhattan’ of skyscrapers and banking headquarters, is a surprisingly passionate football hub.
In 2022, flagship club Eintracht won their first European trophy since 1980. Coming only three years after another memorable run in the same competition, the Europa League triumph marked the 22nd Euro trip since 2018 for a boisterous masse of fans who have followed the Eagles in serious numbers. Despite from the sporadic overspill into trouble, Eintracht’s faithful are best known for keeping the noise levels set to the max all game.
This is not only at odds with an image of a sleek metropolis driven by finance, but also juxtaposed with the club’s relatively modest form in the Bundesliga. Frankfurt save their best for Europe.
In 2013, the Eagles had come straight back up from the 2. Bundesliga, the same year that lesser-known city rivals FSV achieved a highest-ever fourth place, easily their best performance in modern times. The pair had met for the first time in 50 years, both fixtures played at Eintracht’s home ground, today the Deutsche Bank Park, formerly the Commerzbank-Arena, and traditionally known as the Waldstadion. Not surprisingly, Eintracht dominated both games.
FSV have since slipped down to the Regionalliga Südwest after two straight relegations.
In 2011, Frankfurt’s showpiece stadium attracted a full house for the Women’s World Cup Final, five years after staging five games of the men’s version in front of capacity crowds. Nearby stands the main offices of the German FA, the DFB: Frankfurt is where Nationalelf celebrates major victories in its reconstructed medieval centre.
Frankfurt’s most memorable World Cup moment, though, came in 1974, and West Germany’s de facto semi final with Poland, played on a waterlogged pitch. One of the sponge rollers from that day is displayed in the Eintracht Museum at the stadium, which illustrates the early development of football in this international city.
From the 1890s onwards, Frankfurt clubs such as Kickers, Britannia, FSV, Viktoria and Germania were formed, taking part with others from the Hesse region in the Nordkreis-Liga from 1909. Viktoria and Kickers soon became the dominant Frankfurter FV, and then Eintracht after World War I.
It was FSV who dominated the subsequent Bezirksliga Main in the 1920s and the city’s two leading clubs went on to become Southern German champions in 1932 and 1933 respectively. Hesse was considered one of the weaker of the regional leagues.
From the post-war, pre-Bundesliga Oberliga Süd, initially organised by US forces, Eintracht only went on to be crowned national champions once – but this 1959 side would take part in one of the greatest football matches of all time, the European Cup Final with Real Madrid a year later.
FSV slowly fell away, only recovering in the last three seasons. In the city, they and Eintracht remain supreme, their reserve sides playing at least one level above the likes of FC Croatia Frankfurt and Rot-Weiß Frankfurt, formerly Helvetia Frankfurt, way down the ladder.
Despite Eintracht’s local dominance, Frankfurt’s football scene remains colourful, the city full of soccer-focused bars and international flavour.
Getting Around
Arriving in town and local transport
Frankfurt airport is 12km (7.5 miles) south-west of the city, with two terminals connected by a free, frequent, two-minute monorial. Its rail station beside terminal 1 is part of the national German network.
You can reach Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof in 11mins by ICE high-speed train or 15mins by S-Bahn S8/S9 (€4.25). Note that the S8 and S9 also call at Frankfurt (Main) Stadion, a short walk to the Deutsche Bank Park. A Tageskarte inkl Flughafen ticket (€8.30) allows you to get to town and travel all day.
The city transport system consists of an U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams and buses. A single ticket is €1.20-€2.60 depending on the length of journey, a Tageskarte day pass €4.40.
A taxi into town should take about 25mins and cost €20-€25. To contact a taxi firm in town, try Main Taxi on +49 60 73 30 30.
Ryanair uses Frankfurt (Hahn) Airport, 120km (75 miles) from Frankfurt. A bus (€20 single) takes 2hrs 10mins to reach Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof via Frankfurt Airport Terminal 2. Hahn has no rail link.
A local taxi (+49 6543 3514) can take you all the way to Frankfurt but it will cost you the best part of €200. As far as the nearest main station, Mainz, would be around €125.
Where to Drink
The best pubs and bars for football fans
Sachsenhausen is Frankfurt’s bar hub, just the other side of the river from the historic centre. This being a business city, pubs and expat/football-friendly spots abound.
Diagonally opposite the station, massive O’Reilly’s is one of a chain, with branches in Amsterdam and Brussels, and with the good grace to display Eintracht flags and pennants outside and in. Within the station itself, you’ll find two sport-focused venues: downstairs modest Zapfhahn, with its regular following and classic photo of Eintracht’s 1959 title-winning team; and, at street level, the contemporary sports bar Uddin’s.
Also near the station, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2024, Kakadu’s on Kaiserstraße was inspired by a journey to Australia. Our intrepid Frankfurters returned to stock 50 bottles of amber nectar, presumably as many as could be squeezed into hold luggage. Now there are 600 to choose from, plus kangaroo and ostrich on the menu alongside standard German beers and dishes. Sport is shown on four screens and merriment encouraged with happy hour from 5pm-7pm, ominously followed by blue hour from 11.30pm-1am.
Between the station and the city centre, the Gaststätte Moseleck is down-at-heel and football-focused with it, full of local character and not for the faint-hearted. Alongside, the St Tropez Bar is as Eintracht-obsessed as any football hangout in town, it just prefers to party with a specific crowd.
On Schäfergasse, Sam’s Sportsbar reopened in 2023 as Q, with hookah pipes to complement the multi-screen sport, draught Krombacher beer and burgers.
As traditional as it gets, the Alten Limpurg dates back to 1495 and today provides TV sports in the small indoor bar, complemented by a terrace overlooking the city’s focal square, Römerberg.
Champions in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel is US-style, its large, horseshoe bar run by a friendly, multinational staff. For local flavour, don’t miss the lovely, lived-in Zum Tannenbaum, reasonably nearby at Homburger Straße 19, with its table football and flashes of Eintracht colours.
Also close-ish, the Fox & Hound is where expats gather for sport-gawping in what feels like a living room in the Home Counties.
Heading towards Sachsenhausen, K17 (Walter-Kolb-Straße 17) has long past its 40th anniversary, a tiny but much-loved spot run by super-friendly, Turkish landlady Hanim, who fell in with Frankfurt’s local boxing fraternity in the late 1960s. Around her bar, Eintracht and FSV memorabilia are given equal prominence, and regulars make a point of popping in for relaxed banter from 3pm onwards.
In Sachsenhausen itself, on bar-lined Kleine Rittergasse, you’ll find sport-friendly pub Anglo-Irish, the oldest of its kind in Frankfurt, in business since 1996.
Two minutes away on Klappergasse, burger-focused O’Dwyers feels as Irish as the motto on its homepage (‘There are no strangers here, only friend who have never met’) but pours pints, shows games and plays beer pong.
In between them and in place since the 1960s, perhaps inspired by cult TV show The Clangers, Eisener Hahn (‘Iron Chicken’) is a long lived-in pub offering cosy familiarity in a bar hub otherwise full of weekend-only nightspots.
Across the street, Klapper 33 covers both bases, a party place buzzing until 5am at weekends but a football-friendly bar all week, with drinks offers during Euro 2024.
Where to stay
The best hotels for the stadium and city centre
Visit Frankfurt has a hotel database and booking service. As Germany’s financial hub, Frankfurt is full of business hotels, with prices rising during major trade fairs.
Right by the Deutsche Bank Park, the three-star Lindner offers what it calls ‘sporty luxury’, hence the gym, spa and suggestions for leisure time in the nearby forest.
Near the tram stop for the stadium on Isenburger Schneise, the stylish, mid-range Leonardo Hotel Frankfurt City South is more convenient for Eintracht than the many airport hotels within the same radius, plus it has a 24-hour gym, bar and restaurant.
In town near the main station, Manhattan taps into Frankfurt’s urban business culture, with a 24hr bar if you need it, while classy Fleming’s is not as expensive as it first seems.
Other choices around the train terminal include the Excelsior, a handy mid-range option advertising TV football as you leave the station’s side exit, and, close by in the same price bracket, the Continental, which opened soon after the station itself in the late 1800s. Right by O’Reilly’s pub, the Leonardo Frankfurt City Center provides handy mid-range comfort.
Round the corner, Le Méridien Frankfurt, large and grand, is a notch above much of the nearby competition – at a price. For an affordable and convenient stay, the Trip Inn Minerva should do nicely, also walking distance from the station.
Nearer to the city centre, with a sports bar downstairs, the Frankfurt Marriott takes advantage of being Germany’s tallest hotel by offering skyview rooms while facing it, the Maritim has a decent spa and a panoramic pool on the eighth floor.
