Daniel Farke wants to play for titles with Borussia Mönchengladbach

Coach welcomes Eberl’s comeback

In the summer, Daniel Farke took over as coach at Borussia Mönchengladbach and to date has scored nine points from six Bundesliga games with the “foals”. In an interview with the magazine “11 Freunde”, the 45-year-old summed up his first few months on the Lower Rhine, spoke about cover projects with Borussia, his football philosophy – and Ottmar Hitzfeld as a role model.

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Mönchengladbach is Farke’s first higher-class station in Germany. After five years abroad (2017 to 2021 in Norwich, from January to March 2022 at Krasnodar), the “demanding project” at the club, which was in transition, appealed to him. “Of course, Borussia is not a restructuring case like Norwich. I have the feeling of a perfect fit here. The club stands for values, a certain way of working, for down-to-earthness, creativity, possession of the ball, good football, and all of that suits me,” says the coach, who was born in Büren-Steinhausen and who won the championship twice with the “Canaries”. won and led the team back to the Premier League for the first time in three years in 2019.

Farke took over the job on the island in 2017 despite offers from Germany, “because it was the biggest challenge. Norwich are a traditional club, but at the time they lived in the past and were caught up in earlier successes. The team was overaged, too expensive and we had to sell our best players. The infrastructure was outdated and I was the first non-British manager. All of these were arguments against it, but the talks with the sports director and the club management were great. I thought to myself: If I can do that, then I don’t need to be afraid of anything in football.”

In 208 games with the English club, Farke scored an average of 1.5 points – the rate corresponds to his current Bundesliga record with Borussia, with whom he is striving for higher goals in the future: “The best thing about football is winning titles . I’ve had the privilege of holding the trophy four times in my coaching career because we’ve won the season. And I already have the fantasy that Borussia Mönchengladbach will be able to play in top regions again in the medium term. But we have to move towards this step by step. Let’s see how quickly that succeeds.”

Borussia Mönchengladbach’s coach Farke followed Hitzfeld’s example

Farke, who coached SV Lippstadt in the Oberliga Westfalen until 2015 and then coached Borussia Dortmund in the regional league for two years, has always followed the big European top teams in terms of style of play: “I’ve always watched a lot of football . In Germany it was Bayern Munich, abroad a lot of Barcelona and Real Madrid, but even then a lot in England. I can’t name one style that particularly influenced me, but one person: Ottmar Hitzfeld.”

Even today, the work of the 73-year-old, who won the Champions League with BVB and Bayern and was voted world club coach of the year twice, points the way for Farke in difficult situations. The “Fohlen” coach was impressed by the fact that the former Swiss national coach “stacked one title after the next in Dortmund and Munich and that he was such a gentleman. But I was particularly fascinated by the way he led a group. The special players have had their best time under him, whether Matthias Sammer, Karl-Heinz Riedle or Andreas Möller at Borussia Dortmund, at FC Bayern it was Oliver Kahn, Stefan Effenberg, Giovane Elber. He was able to tease something special out of them and at the same time made the other players on the team feel valued. If there’s a coach I keep asking myself what he would do in this situation, it’s Ottmar Hitzfeld.”

Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Farke welcomes Eberl’s comeback in the Bundesliga

In a press conference before the upcoming Bundesliga duel with RB Leipzig (Saturday, 6:30 p.m.), Farke also commented on the forthcoming comeback of ex-Foal sports director Max Eberl at the Saxons. Despite retiring at the end of January due to mental exhaustion, the 48-year-old is still employed by Gladbach until 2026. His contract is only suspended, which is why the club insists on a transfer fee. “If Eberl now decides to come back to the league, that’s fantastic news. For him as a person and also for football in general. I’m happy for German football and also for Max,” explained Farke when asked about the last criticism of Eberl.

On Tuesday, the organized fan scene in Gladbach made serious allegations against the ex-sports director in an open letter. “We simply no longer believe that you were upstanding and honest with us at the end of your tenure at Borussia,” the statement said. Eberl is accused of having negotiated with Leipzig back then. The manager had previously denied this. “I didn’t work with Max here and I don’t presume to judge the subject. But as an outsider, I can say that he shaped an era at Borussia in various roles. He led the club into very successful spheres. If you make a list of the best Bundesliga managers of the last ten years, then Max is right at the top. It goes without saying that one would have wished for other circumstances for his departure,” Farke commented on the current debate.

Under Eberl, Borussia have spent €295m on the transfer market since the summer of 2009 and earned €218m in the same period. Due to the club’s massive sporting crisis last winter, Eberl, whose work was highly valued for many years, was also criticized. Before the season he had brought in Adi Hütter from Eintracht Frankfurt for 7.5 million euros as Rose’s successor, whose early departure from Gladbach to Borussia Dortmund had already led to discord.

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