Gladbach’s sports director Max Eberl said goodbye to his club in tears. For him it was the only possible and right decision. But it is also the final farewell to his old life – and a radical new start with an announcement!
The beginning of the end of Max Eberl’s time in Mönchengladbach probably began exactly a year ago. He had already done the job at Borussia for sixteen seasons in a row when he took “a break” at the beginning of last year. In the middle of the season. This not only caused astonishment in the industry, but the sabbatical also raised questions. Questions that Max Eberl sent with foresight and cushioned directly with his contract extension until 2026.
That was to be understood as a signal to the outside world that everything was fine: “No one has to worry about me.” But looking back on those days of “switching off”, Eberl will probably not even be able to answer what he might have looked like at this point in time. At that time he only had the feeling – at least that’s how he put it – that he had to get out and then “attack the next few years with full energy”. And as he said it, he added one of his favorite phrases in the same breath: “Because we want to pee with the big guys in the league!”
When he got back to day-to-day business from his time out in the mountains, Eberl said it was a hard “impact”. One can assume that in those minutes, hours and days of his return, for the first time in all these years he really became aware of what he is actually doing in his job. And perhaps for the first time in a long time he has really felt that the work he does there is not everything in his life.
“Max, don’t you want to be a sports director?”
You have to take all of this into account if you want to correctly classify this ultimately radical step of retiring from his position at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Because his termination of employment was anything but a spontaneous knee-jerk act. On the contrary, if you look at the last one or two years in the life of Max Eberl, you can even come to the – at first glance – strange conclusion: This step was almost inevitable!
A leap back to October 2008. At that time, Eberl took over the post of sports director at Borussia Mönchengladbach from Christian Ziege. And only some time later, the Gladbach icon Berti Vogts commented on the personality of Max Eberl in this way: “He doesn’t even know how he got into this position. He probably drove by by accident on his bike and Rolf Königs has him and then said, ‘Max, don’t you want to be a sports director?'”
Tough stuff – but a realistic mood that Vogts poured into those nasty words at the time, even among the fans of the Fohlenelf in those early days of Eberl in a managerial position at Borussia Park. And to be honest: The stuttering start as sports director actually ended almost two and a half years later with the appointment of coach Lucien Favre. The Swiss was Max Eberl’s first direct hit – and a very complicated case as a person.
Successful but down to earth
Nevertheless, Favre not only prevented Borussia from being relegated in the 2011 relegation, but even led the club to the Champions League in 2015. And quite a few insiders in Mönchengladbach know that this ascent was essentially associated with the name Eberl. However, it is different from what the general public might think. The fact that Favre stayed with Borussia for so long also had something to do with the apparently endless calm and perseverance of sports director Eberl.
Insiders say that Favre sat on packed suitcases several times during these years – because he didn’t like this and that – but Max Eberl was able to change his mind every time. Until September 20, 2015. At that time, the Gladbach sports director is said to have hesitated a little too long after six consecutive defeats in competitive games when Favre wanted to throw everything down again. The strength was gone. Who can blame Max Eberl?
During the years in Mönchengladbach, which many now rightly look back on as the best era for Borussia after the trophy seasons in the 70s, Max Eberl also developed the image of the successful and yet always down-to-earth doer. The sometimes more, sometimes less public advances of FC Bayern in the past speak volumes.
The decisive break
And yet the times in Mönchengladbach were never easy for Max Eberl. He always had to fight persistently, be particularly creative and swallow and process many a bitter pill – such as last summer’s unexpected change from coach Marco Rose to BVB. But Eberl never knew any of this at Borussia.
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary anecdote treasure chest. for ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Mondays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his page www.scudetto.de.
And probably the native of Lower Bavaria would have put away the currently difficult sporting situation, the once again great human disappointments surrounding the departures of Matthias Ginter and Denis Zakaria and the personal quarrels surrounding the departure of his girlfriend as team manager at Borussia and solved them imaginatively – if it hadn’t been for the break exactly a year ago in the Swiss mountains. She must have changed everything.
And so Max Eberl is now leaving Borussia Mönchengladbach after a total of twenty-three years without having fulfilled his dream of winning a title with the Fohlenelf. His sudden departure surprised many. He himself in the end probably no longer. The last year just made everything different.
It was time for a fresh start. And whatever this may look like – there is much to suggest that Max Eberl will succeed. But now he wants to “just be Max Eberl”. All the best and good luck!