Learn about Max Eberl’s incredible story and his time at Borussia Mönchengladbach, where his mark in history will remain
Unveiled by Bayern Munich, for which he only played one game with the first team, Max Eberl would rather go through Bochum and Greuther Furth arrival in Borussia Mönchengladbach in early 1999 at the age of 25. Perhaps he couldn’t imagine that this would be the beginning of a passage that spanned more than two decades.
A hit in the first half of the year. Borussia Mönchengladbach finished at the bottom of the league in 1998-99 and suffered an unprecedented relegation. Since joining 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 certainly no closer to their best days.
The foals, who were five times national champions in the 1970s, they always finished third and fourth between 1983-84 and 1986-97, and finished fourth in 1995-96, they have become total supporters.
Since its return to the elite, the club has never progressed from 10th place to being relegated to last in 2006-07. In the meantime, Eberl retired after 146 performances for Borussia until 2004. The following year, he became the base coordinator and would start playing in 2008, the same year Gladbach returned to the top flight.
Eberl rose to 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 playoff to avoid relegation – the situation would change from there.
From 2011-12, the foals don’t know what it’s like to finish the championship in ninth place, highlighting fourth place in 2011-12, 2015-16 and 2019-20 and third place in 2014-15.
Good coaching choices such as Lucien Favre and Marco Rose have been important in the recovery of this club, as well as in the precise acquisitions.
In a text on the Bundesliga website four years ago called “Max Eberl: the man who turns foals into thoroughbreds”, examples are mentioned of footballers who have experienced 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 board) asking me about Marco Reus signing,” Eberl said in an interview with the Bundesliga website.
Today, Borussia Dortmund’s captain was in Rot Weiss-Ahlen in 2008-09, before leaving for Gladbach.
“Max, don’t you think $ 800,000 for a second-tier player who has scored four goals is a lot of money?” Eberl recalls as if he were Meyer.
“If Hans Meyer says something like that, you might not know for sure. But Marco convinced me completely. My instinct told me that we would potentially buy there, even though 800,000 euros was a lot of money for Gladbach at the time.”
Reus would be voted Bundesliga Player of the Year 2011/12 before returning to Dortmund. It was the great name of a Gladbach who went from 16th place in 2010-11 to fourth place the following season.
Years later, for example 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, they show that the management of the Borussia club is still very keen on seeing talent.
In other words, the names in the cast changed, but Eberl continued there, as did the club’s success. 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 extended his contract in late December to mid-2026, putting him in a club reaching 25 for over 27 years for a story that began with relegation before becoming a true redemption.