Everyone at Barcelona, from the president, through the coach to the players and loyal fans experienced total disappointment and institutional embarrassment because of what happened on Thursday evening at their home, the Camp Nou.
Barcelona's European adventure in the UEFA Europa League came to an unfortunate conclusion when Eintracht Frankfurt surprisingly defeated them 3-2. Despite that, one of the more remarkable stories to emerge from the match was the overwhelming presence of away supporters in the Catalans' home stadium.
There were only 99,354 seats available at Barcelona's Camp Nou, but over 30,000 Frankfurt supporters squeezed in to witness their team take a commanding lead in the second half and hold on for a 4-3 aggregate victory against Barcelona. However, the away side had the right to about 5,000 tickets.
Why 30,000 Eintracht Frankfurt fans were present at Camp Nou
Noise from the German supporters at the Camp Nou Stadium nearly made it seem like they were playing abroad, with coach Xavi Hernandez and president Joan Laporta voicing their disappointment. "I was expecting 70,000 or 80,000 Barca fans, here but it wasn't like that. The club is checking what happened", said the manager.
The Blaugrana's president Joan Laporta afterward stated: "We are worried about the fact that today a big shame happened which can't happen again. We have a large part of the information at hand of what happened, we need time to process this and we will take the appropriate measures but it's shameful what happened."
It is clear that most of the Eintracht fans came in buying tickets from the season ticket holders. According to Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo, tickets were resold for a sum of €500. About 25,000 owners of season tickets decided to cash in from the Germans and give their place at the La Liga giant's stadium for this match.
It is said they say that the Eagles' supporters found tickets through unofficial tour operators, resellers, and in various other ways, bought from everywhere, but not in Germany. This unprecedented invasion showed the weaknesses of Barcelona's club work, weaknesses that in the past period were covered by impressive results of the squad.
Watch: Not the first time for home crowd to be outnumbered by Frankurt fans
Fans of Frankfurt had already made a splash in London in May 2019 in the second leg of the UEFA Europa League Semi-Finals against Chelsea at the Stamford Bridge. Fan films from Frankfurt showed the route taken by a few of those thousands of Germans who came to see them perform.
Red coaches were rented by Chelsea for a group of German fans traveling to Stamford Bridge for the season finale against Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, which hosted the final. According to the English tabloid Daily Mail, a number of Frankfurt supporters were unable to get tickets on the away end and were forced to infiltrate the home support sections.
