Marco Rose is already there, Max Eberl wants to follow in January after a burnout. Ironically, the two men who wanted to lead Gladbach to titles are now reunited at RB Leipzig. Before the RB performance in Borussia Park, there is bitterness, disappointment and anger.
When Max Eberl, at that time sports director of the Bundesliga soccer team Borussia Mönchengladbach, visited the club’s then coach, Dieter Hecking, in his house on an April evening in 2019, no one could have guessed what kind of development this visit would trigger. Eberl fired Hecking that evening, not because of bad work, but because he wanted to take Borussia to the next level with a new kind of coach. Marco Rose came. At the provisional end of the events, more than three years later, the TV top game of the day is scheduled for Saturday evening: Borussia Mönchengladbach against RB Leipzig.
And just the two men, Max Eberl and Marco Rose, who started three years ago to turn the traditional club from the Lower Rhine into a real top team again, possibly winning titles, are now continuing the joint project with the opponent. An opponent like an alternative to the traditional Bundesliga club; more of a corporate division (Red Bull) than a club; conceived instead of grown; equipped with big money, which promises to achieve goals much faster than it seems possible at a club like Gladbach – if it is ever possible there again.
Max Eberl: At RB in the word
It is this constellation that causes bitterness and disappointment, as well as anger, in Gladbach. Rose will be on the edge of the field as RB coach on Saturday, but that will not be the case with Eberl – maybe it’s better that way. According to media reports, the 48-year-old has promised to pull the strings at “Rasenballsport” from January. It’s probably just about the amount that the Leipzig team will release the highly respected football manager from his currently dormant contract with Borussia. The bitterness around Borussia Park is so deep that the umbrella organization of the Gladbach fan clubs, the FPMG Supporters Club, in an open letter even accuses Max Eberl, who has been idolized up to now because of his merits, of saying that his departure in tears was just a staging.
At the end of January this year, Eberl withdrew from his heart club and the Bundesliga business in general – exhausted, burned out. In a voice choked with tears, he declared at a press conference that he wanted nothing to do with football for the time being. The manager had just taken a break, which turned out to be the harbinger of his departure from Borussia. There were already rumors that RB Leipzig was interested in signing, but Eberl vehemently brushed aside this as a reason for his time off. He just wants out.
Fan project accuses Eberl of acting
At the time, Eberl earned general respect for his decision; also for the courage to make them public. This also applied to Borussia and those around it, although the disappointment at the loss of the maker of modern Borussia was of course deep. “Even back then, there were some critics who fundamentally distrusted acting,” writes the fan project now and makes angry accusations at Eberl: “Yes, today we deliberately say ‘acting’. To get straight to the point: we just don’t believe it more that you were upstanding and honest with us at the end of your tenure at Borussia.”
A sensitive accusation, as the fan project admits. It is an allegation that can hardly be proven. After all, only the person affected and the medical care can judge whether, how and after what period of time a person feels capable of returning to work after burnout. Nevertheless, the fan representatives do not like to hold back “You never said that you were ill. The word ‘burnout’ never came up from you. And yet you knew as a media professional that your appearance at the final press conference was exactly that in the world of football will be transported,” says the open letter addressed directly to Eberl. Giving the public this image of your professional football fatigue while haggling over your exit to Red Bull is – we can’t put it any other way – downright shoddy and a slap in the face to anyone actually burnout affected people.”
Lars Stindl: “Bottom drawer”
A statement that has been widely criticized in comments. Borussia declines to comment on this. Team captain Lars Stindel showed no understanding for such statements well before the publication of the fan project letter. “That’s complete nonsense,” said the ex-national player Beginning of September in the video format “Kicker meets DAZN”, “These are people who have no idea about the human being”. He can understand the criticism of a move to RB Leipzig to a certain extent, says the 34-year-old, “but basically criticizing the other and letting it flow in is the bottom drawer. It just doesn’t work.” Similar to Gladbach’s world champion Christoph Kramer, Stindl also emphasized how happy he was that Max Eberl was obviously doing better if he dared to return to a managerial position.
Far more than the (probably unfounded) speculation about his state of health shakes the constellation that has now emerged at the Eberl monument in Mönchengladbach. It’s not just offended fan representatives who think it’s a taste that Eberl, after passionately living and shaping the concept of the traditional club in Mönchengladbach, now wants to switch to a “construct” (O-Ton Eberl) like RB Leipzig – so after Reading of many critics, so to speak, in the center of that football business, which he still wanted to escape so badly a few months ago. Not only for the fan project is the summit that the duo Eberl/Rose is formed again.
Guessing about the relationship between Eberl and Rose
However, that was not foreseeable until two weeks ago. Rose took over from the recently hapless Domenico Tedesco at the cup winners just a few days ago, the game in Gladbach is only his third as RB coach. Nevertheless: Rose’s early departure from Mönchengladbach is one of the reasons for Eberl’s exit. Instead of building “something big” in Gladbach, as was always said, Rose dropped everything at the first opportunity and succumbed to the lure of Borussia Dortmund. The fact that the coach didn’t have the success there that one had hoped for in the Ruhr area and is already gone was received with satisfaction around Borussia Park. Rose is considered there as a traitor to the Gladbach project, which initially worked and which Borussia carried into the knockout phase of the Champions League. But with the announcement of his change, Rose pulled the plug, which “Bild” reported Players felt “downright lied to” by the coach and Max Eberl is said to have been “personally disappointed”.
A circumstance that the fan project also takes up: “And then you also meet Marco Rose there. Didn’t you always tell us in spring 2021 how much his decision disappointed you personally? Didn’t you always emphasize that you only sticking with him for Borussia, but not because you want to continue working with him What kind of morality is that when his false ambition lets your painstakingly built house of the new successful Borussia collapse like a house of cards, Borussia even falls into the relegation battle and then drives you away from here? And now everything is forgotten and forgiven and the dream duo is working together again?”
Rose: “I’ll take it as it comes”
That was actually at least awarded, at least put Statements by Guido Schäfer, presented as an RB connoisseur, in the “Fever Pit’ch” podcast by Sport-1 editor-in-chief Pit Gottschalk vicinity. According to Schäfer, the contact between Eberl and Rose has not broken off despite the failure of the Gladbach project, which has received much attention in the league; the bond between the two grew even stronger during Eberl’s illness. Schäfer: “Marco has visited him several times and they are pretty much the best of friends! Max has never forgotten that Marco took so much care of him during this bad time!” On the other hand, according to Schäfer, “some Gladbach grandees” should not care. have, according to Schäfer. “Eberl took this club to a whole new level and left an incredible amount behind for Gladbach. There should be more gratitude.”
The situation before the clash between the two clubs could hardly be more complex and explosive. Marco Rose is aware that he can hardly expect a friendly welcome at Borussia Park. “I’ll take it as it comes,” said the 46-year-old on Friday. Gladbach’s coach Daniel Farke made an effort during Borussia’s press conference on the game on Thursday to calm things down. “If Max Eberl decides to return to football, that’s fantastic news,” said Farke, who described himself as an “outsider”. “I’m happy for him as a person and also for German football.” shaped an era and achieved extraordinary things. He led the club into successful spheres.”
Fan project also wants to look ahead
Most recently, Gladbach had not looked back on the last year and a half. With a new coach, a new sporting director and ultimately a strong team, Borussia has been solid so far this season. The fan project also seems ready to look ahead: “We took a stand and told him what needed to be said,” said a fan representative spokesman to the “Rheinische Post”, “and now it’s good to find it we.”