Max Eberl leaves in tears and it just goes on without pity

P. Köster: cabin sermon
The show has to go on: Max Eberl resigns in tears. But it just keeps going, pitilessly

When Max Eberl appeared in front of the press on Friday afternoon, the expectations of the manager of Bundesliga club Borussia Mönchengladbach were clear. He would verbosely explain why the paths were now going their separate ways, how grateful he was to Borussia for the past few decades, and possibly he would even announce which club he would be joining soon. But it turned out to be disturbingly different. Because Eberl told us in tears about his deep exhaustion, lack of strength and great tiredness and the unconditional desire to draw a line now immediately. After 23 years at the club, as a player, youth coordinator, manager. “I have to get out,” said Eberl.

And right in the middle: the exhausted Max Eberl

It was the dramatic confession of a man at the end of his rope. Which should have ended the press conference. But what happened next was a horrific example of the business of football and its sometimes chilling deformities. It only lasted a few minutes before the manager’s shocking admission was almost forgotten, and the other officials were already being asked about successor candidates and possible transfers, just as if the exhausted, depressed Eberl were no longer in the middle. The fact that Borussia President Rolf Königs allowed himself to be carried away by the remark that it was “respected, not accepted”, as if he were entitled to it at all, was the macabre low point of a revealing event.

Philipp Köster: Cabin Sermon

Philipp Köster, born in 1972, is the founder and editor-in-chief of the football magazine “11 Friends”. He collects jerseys and stadium notebooks, knows the Romanian champions of 1984 and can recite the starting XI of Borussia Dortmund in the 1986 relegation game against Fortuna Cologne by heart: Eike Immel, Frank Pagelsdorf, Bernd Storck, … He is also the author of numerous football books, including about the history of the Bundesliga, and was named “Sports Journalist of the Year” in 2010. Above all, he is a supporter of the glorious Arminia from Bielefeld.

In fact, Eberl is just one of many officials, trainers and employees in the football business who work far beyond their strength, who push mountains of overtime in front of them, who answer their mobile phones at any time of the day or night. In short, one of many who have made the constant excitement, the self-declared importance of football, the dominant feature of their lives. The hustle and bustle inherent in football, the constant pressure, deforms people. Everything revolves around football for them, next Saturday’s game, the next transfer. It’s almost impossible to have a conversation with a manager or coach in the big leagues that doesn’t end up back at some club, coach or striker within five minutes. Theater, music, politics, culture, none of it is interesting, it’s always about football, football, football.

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Added to this is the merciless harshness of the business. Football may be a sport of great emotions, but the commercial part of professional sport is a brutal and ruthless trade – a direct consequence of the vast sums of money that football makes in itself and for which everyone scuffles. The stark contrast between the pathos of public pronouncements and the behind-the-scenes profiteering leaves many white-collar and mid-level officials cynical or jaded. Anyone strolling through the business areas on match days will see them there, in business shirts that are far too tight, with tired eyes and laughing far too loud.

Neither cynic nor apparatchik

Max Eberl always tried to evade it all. He wanted neither to become a cynic nor an apparatchik. Anyone who spoke to him always experienced an alert, curious and enthusiastic person even after many years. This constant resistance to the laws of professional football has always cost him a lot of strength, in the end probably too much. At the press conference, Eberl looked tired, touched and at the same time relieved to have taken at least a first step to save himself.

At the same time, this press conference, at which he was still sitting at the end and yet seemed terribly lonely, must have made it clear to him that the show would simply go on without him. Nobody in football has any greater interest in pausing and asking themselves whether they want to continue like this and maintain this constant operation of pressure, overload and permanent observation. This is also a question that is aimed directly at the media and the public, which greedily absorbs every rumor from the industry, no matter how absurd, and passes it on thousands of times.

“I don’t want to have anything to do with you”: Eberl’s remarkable dig at the media

Bang in Gladbach: sports director Max Eberl resigns

“Eberl is about frustration, hurt pride and love,” wrote the “Bild” newspaper about the alleged “real reasons for the Gladbach earthquake.” In fact, it was largely made up, as Eberl firmly emphasized. The responsible reporter was of course also in the audience. He had nothing to correct. The show must go on.