Liverpool’s preparations for their Champions League clash with Eintracht Frankfurt were disrupted on Tuesday after their flight to Germany was delayed by almost four hours due to technical problems with the aircraft. The squad, managed by Arne Slot, had been scheduled to depart from Liverpool John Lennon Airport at 4pm following a pre-match training session at the club’s training ground.
Instead, the plane did not take off until 7.51pm, leaving the players waiting in a private terminal throughout that time. The flight did nevertheless arrive before Frankfurt airport closed at 11pm German time (10pm BST), meaning the team reached their destination on the evening before the match.
The travelling party of 21 players did not include Ryan Gravenberch, who sustained an ankle injury in Sunday’s defeat to Manchester United. The late departure also forced the cancellation of Liverpool’s pre-match press conference, which was due to feature Slot and Dominik Szoboszlai. A club statement issued 40 minutes before the briefing was to begin confirmed the delay and said the briefing would no longer take place.
Technically, Liverpool are in breach of Uefa regulations that require clubs to arrive by the evening before a match and fulfil media obligations. However, the club are unlikely to be fined as the delay was beyond their control. Arsenal were in a similar situation in October 2023, when their flight to Lens was delayed by nearly five hours due to adverse weather, and they were not sanctioned.
Slot insisted the disruption would not affect the team’s preparation, saying: “No, it will not impact the buildup to tomorrow’s game. We have trained over here at the AXA; normally we would have gone to Frankfurt a few hours earlier, now we are a few hours later. That can never be an excuse for the game tomorrow.” The match comes as Liverpool seek to avoid a fifth consecutive defeat, a run not suffered since September 1953.
