Learn about the incredible history of Max Eberl and his time at Borussia Mönchengladbach, where his mark will go down in history.
Revealed by Bayern Munich, for which he played a single game with the first team, Max Eberl would pass through Bochum and Greuther Furth, before arrived in Borösia Mönchengladbach in early 1999 at the age of 25. Perhaps he could not imagine that this would be the beginning of a passage that has lasted more than two decades.
In the first half of the year, once. Borussia Mönchengladbach finished at the bottom of the league in 1998-99 and suffered an unprecedented relegation. Since reaching the Bundesliga in 1965-66, the club had never left the first division. With Eberl, the team would return to the elite in 2001, but they were definitely no closer to their best days.
The foals, who were five times national champions in the 1970s, Always finished third and fourth between 1983-1984 and 1986-1997, and finished fourth in 1995-96, have become total supporters.
Since his return to the elite, the club has not moved from tenth position until he was relegated to last place in 2006-07.. By this time, Eberl had already retired after 146 appearances for Borussia until 2004. The following year, he became coordinator at the base and would play in 2008, the same year that Gladbach returned to the top category.
Eberl secured a higher position on the board in 2010, a decade in which Gladbach would be reborn forever. After the discreet campaigns of 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 – the latter finished in 16th place and had to play the second leg to avoid relegation – the situation would change from here.
Dec 2011-12, the foals don’t know what it’s like to finish the championship after ninth place, With highlights for fourth place in 2011-12, 2015-16 and 2019-20 and third place in 2014-15.
Good coaching choices like Lucien Favre and Marc Rose have been important in the recovery of this club, as well as the precise signings.
A text on the Bundesliga website four years ago called “Max Eberl: the man who turns foals into purebred” mentions the examples of footballers who have had great growth at the club, such as Marco Reus , Juan Arango, Marc-Andre have Stegen and Granit Xhaka.
“I remember Hans Meyer (former coach and now member of the Gladbach management) asking me about the signing of Marc Reus,” Eberl said in an interview with the Bundesliga website.
Today the captain of Borussia Dortmund was in the Rot Weiss-Ahlen in 2008-09, before going to Gladbach.
“Max, don’t you think 800,000 euros for a second-tier player who has scored four goals is a lot of money?” Eberl recalled speaking as if he were Meyer.
“If Hans Meyer says something like that, then you might be insecure. But Marc convinced me completely. My instinct told me we would buy potential there, even if 800,000 euros was a lot of money at the time for Gladbach.”
Reus would be voted Player of the Year in the 2011-12 Bundesliga before returning to Dortmund. It was the big name of a Gladbach who moved from 16th place in 2010-11 to the chamber already in the following campaign.
Years later, the free signing of Florian Neuhaus with Munich 1860 in 2017 or the 9 million euros invested to remove Marcus Thuram from Guingamp in mid-2019, for example, they show that Borussia’s club management is still very keen on the art of seeing talent.
In other words, the names on the cast were changing, though Eberl continued there as well as the success of the club. While his days as a support player and even as a struggle not to be left behind in Mönchengladbach, the future seems to be tied to his sporting director. He even renewed his contract in late December until mid-2026, which will make him more than 27 years old at a club that reached 25 for a history that began with relegation before becoming a true redemption.