Max Eberl is moving from Gladbach to RB Leipzig, as the cup winner confirmed on Monday after tough negotiations. How did the new Managing Director Sport justify the explosive step? Because: Eberl was once one of the critics of the up-and-coming club.
Max Eberl returns to the Bundesliga. His new employer is – of all things – RB Leipzig. A club that the long-time manager of Borussia Mönchengladbach did not always have much for, if only because of his financial possibilities.
In 2016, for example, Eberl also expressed his displeasure with the business practices of the new competitor in an interview with “Focus”. “What bothers me about RB is this pushing of players from Salzburg to Leipzig and from Leipzig to Salzburg. That has a bad aftertaste for me because they basically have two squads,” said Eberl at the time.
The transfer deficit at the time also pissed off the now 48-year-old. “RB Leipzig doesn’t seem to need to make any money,” as he added to “Welt” a year later.
This is how Eberl justified his move to RB Leipzig
Six years later, Max Eberl still signed on at RB Leipzig and ended his break from the football business several months earlier than planned. Oliver Mintzlaff, CEO of the Red Bulls, revealed in a statement that Eberl originally only wanted to return to operational business in the summer of 2023. However, the manager was persuaded to take up his duties as early as December 15th – around two weeks before the start of the winter transfer period.
Max Eberl’s reason for this step: “I’m coming to a club that has developed rapidly in recent years, is very ambitious and stands for a clear football philosophy. There is huge potential here – in the entire club and the entire region. This Using and developing potential is an incredibly attractive task for me.”
Eberl “ready” again despite the shortened time-out
At the same time, the “trustful talks of the last few weeks with RB Leipzig about Oliver Mintzlaff and the associated appreciation, also to the effect that the club respects my break until after the World Cup”, showed that he would like to sign with the Saxons.
Eberl had surprisingly broken up his tents in Gladbach last January shortly before the transfer deadline and after a total of 23 years as a player and sports director because he “just had to get out of the mill”, he explained at a press conference at the time, visibly exhausted.
Now he is “grateful for the time I needed to rest and I feel ready and full of energy to work in football again”. He signed a long-term contract with RB Leipzig, which according to media reports is dated until 2026. According to reports, Gladbach will receive a transfer fee of 2.5 million euros.
In the Saxons, Max Eberl is now working with coach Marco Rose, whom he brought to Gladbach in 2019.