Looking back: Eintracht and the USA | OneFootball

Training camps, fan clubs, partnerships, international players… we take a look at the shared history between Eintracht Frankfurt and the United States.

The Eagles will be in the midst of their pre-season when the plane takes off for the USA on 22 July. Head coach Dino Toppmöller will put his squad through two days of performance tests, beginning on 8 July, with training kicking off in Frankfurt on 10 July. Twelve days later, the squad will head across the Atlantic to continue their preparations for the 2024/25 Bundesliga season, staying primarily in Louisville, Kentucky until August.

From Austin, Buffalo and Columbus via Milwaukee and New York City to San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle, the Eagles have made their mark in so many cities across the United States over the years, dating back to the 1950s. It all began with the Goodwill Tour, which saw the Eagles play eight friendlies across 25 days, drawing combined crowds of 70,000 spectators and generating 50,000 dollars in donations which went towards the renovations of the stand at the Riederwald stadium. “Without those 50,000 dollars, there is no way that we would have won the German league title in 1959 and we would not be where we are now,” said Axel Hellmann, CEO of Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG. You can read more about this below...

The first-ever match between Eintracht and a US team came even earlier than that, back on 21 June 1930, and was held in Germany. Germania Milwaukee, aka the ‘German-American All-Stars’, played seven friendlies across Germany, one of them in Frankfurt, with Eintracht winning 4-0.

From summer 1930, we now leap forward over eight decades into the future…

2017: the birth of #SGEagles On four occasions between 2017 and 2020, Frankfurt held their training camp in the United States as part of a US tour, with the accompanying hashtag #SGEagles. Niko Kovac’s men did pre-season training in July 2017 in Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco and Columbus. The friendlies against top-flight US teams Seattle Sounders (1-1), San José Earthquakes (1-4) and Columbus Crew SC (0-1) did not have the desired results, but provided plenty of lessons for the squad to take on board, and at the end of the 2017/18 season, the Eagles lifted the DFB Cup.

The following summer also saw Eintracht head to the USA for their pre-season. Adi Hütter had taken over the coaching reins for the 2018/19 campaign and went with his team to Salt Lake City and Philadelphia in July 2018. Two friendlies were part of the programme that produced a 1-1 draw with Real Salt Lake City and a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Philadelphia Union, the former club of Frankfurt goalkeeping legend Oka Nikolov. Florida Cup debut

Six months later, Eintracht headed back across the pond. The team had their first winter-break training sessions of 2019 in the Florida sunshine in Tampa, before taking part in the Florida Cup in Orlando for the first time. After a 2-1 win over São Paulo, they faced another Brazilian side in Flamengo, going down 1-0.

Office opened in New York City

Conditions in the south-east of the USA proved to be ideal, and as such the club opted to have their winter-break training in the Sunshine State once again in 2020, including a friendly in Saint Petersburg against fellow Bundesliga side Hertha BSC.

At the same time but much further up the east coast, Eintracht were developing their globalisation strategy, opening their own office in New York, in the building of their main sponsor Indeed, on 10 January 2020. And that is not the only connection that the club has with the city that never sleeps…

The 1951 Goodwill Tour

Eintracht and the Big Apple is a story that goes back as far as the 1920s and 1930s, when Frankfurt locals emigrated to New York in numbers. They included August Steuer, a big fan of the club who ended up playing a significant role in the first-ever USA trip made by the team from the Heart of Europe. In 1951, the Eagles became the second German team to be invited by the German-American Football Association (DAFB) to make what was known as a Goodwill Tour of the USA. Eintracht travelled for 25 days and played eight matches in various states – three of them in New York and one in neighbouring New Jersey.

These were very much seen as friendlies, with the results of secondary importance. What was more significant were the ties that were created between the people of two countries. Furthermore, the trip helped with the financing of the basic infrastructure of the club at the Riederwald stadium, with the Eagles bringing 50,000 dollars in donations back to Germany. As a sign of recognition and gratitude. Eintracht unveiled a plaque in honour of August Steuer in 1954, which is now on display at the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum, and in 1959 – the year that the club won the German league title – he was made an honorary member of the club.

The relationship with the DAFB was maintained in the years that followed, with the Eagles crossing the Atlantic again in the 1960s and 1970s.

12 official fan clubs

Speaking of NYC, EFC New York is the largest official Eintracht fan club in the USA. There are now 12 registered EFCs, with 149 Eintracht members between them across the length and breadth of the country.

Partnerships and football camps

There are other important points of contact between the Eagles and the USA:

One-time Eintracht youth product turned club stalwart Timothy Chandler is an avid American football fan, which comes as no surprise given his US roots and the fact that he won 29 caps for that country between 2011 and 2016. Chandler is not the only American to have played for Eintracht: Ricardo Clark had a couple of seasons with the Eagles, Jermaine Jones made his way through the Frankfurt youth system, and David Wagner also had a short stint with the club. Alongside Chandler, Paxten Aaronson – currently out on loan in the Netherlands – is also part of the Eintracht family.