opinion
Resignation of the sports director
Thank you Max Eberl!
At the press conference to say goodbye, Max Eberl cried
© Christian Verheyen / Borussia Mönchengladbach / DPA
The emotional resignation of Max Eberl shows once again how quickly we forget that in football, too, people are the focus. Thanks for your frankness.
“Keep going, keep going!” Oliver Kahn once shouted – it became the mantra for an entire industry. Keep going. From game to game. From minute to minute. From duel to duel. On, on and on – until it’s no longer possible.
Max Eberl’s resignation from Borussia Mönchengladbach shows what happens when it’s no longer possible at some point. “I have no more strength,” said Eberl at the press conference on his farewell. Five words that get to the heart of everything. Five words that will knock every football fan’s legs off, just as Eberl once did with his opponents.
The resignation comes as no surprise
The fact that the resignation came as such a surprise is less due to Eberl himself. Tabloid media have already speculated why he no longer wants to. At his new girlfriend? On Borussia’s comparatively weak season so far? No – it’s because he CAN’T anymore, because this job and everything that goes with it costs so many grains. Almost everyone who follows football forgets that – inevitably. After all, it goes “on and on”.
An endless stoppage-time loop of pressing and counter-pressing, on and off the pitch. Push, be tough, intervene – there are countless phrases that show what the fans expect from their team. Weakness is definitely not one of them. At some point this pressure breaks. God knows Eberl is not the first in this regard.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Matthias Sammer, Ralf Rangnick, Per Mertesacker or probably countless other players and officials who don’t talk about it publicly for fear of the stigma – this sport, this pressure, this responsibility has destroyed them all. Eberl himself said that he wanted to get out of this “mill” and therefore pulled the rip cord, probably only seconds before he would literally get caught between the grinders.
Eberl’s farewell can be a reminder of why we love this sport so much
As emotional as the press conference was and as difficult as it will be for all fans and observers of Borussia Mönchengladbach to go into the future without the successful sports director, Eberl’s decision is the right one. It is often said that nobody is bigger than the club. But the club must never be bigger than your own joy in life.
Maybe Eberl’s farewell, but above all the reason for it, is a blueprint and a reminder of why you love this sport so much: for the joy of the game, the community, the emotions. When this joy evaporates, it takes a final whistle. Eberl realized that only he himself can pick up the whistle, and thank God he did it – because that ugly face of football would not have blown the whistle before he had been carried off the field on a stretcher – and then it would be closed been late.
Eberl showed us that there is one thing we must never forget between the back four, double six and wing tongs: On and off the pitch there are not only jerseys, numbers and coats of arms, but first and foremost people. With emotions, worries, feelings and fears.
Therefore: Thank you, Max Eberl!