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What does Max Eberl expect? Tasteless posters? Offensive crowd chants? Probably both.
It wouldn’t be anything RB Leipzig’s sporting director wasn’t used to. His journey into the past on Saturday (03/11/2023, from 3.20 p.m. live on the radio report at sportschau.de) will be particularly spicy. At the first official reunion with Borussia Mönchengladbach, Eberl will be employed by the Saxon Bundesliga club for exactly 100 days.
His former club’s fans are unlikely to congratulate him. On the contrary. The Gladbach ultra group Sottocultura, which Eberl calls on its website, became particularly clear “charakterlose Person” denoted that “on the evil side of football” changed. At the same time, the group wrote with reference to Eberl’s self-proclaimed burn-out diagnosis, which is why he left Gladbach in January 2022 after 23 years as a player and sports director “his invented ‘disease’, which coincidentally and fittingly paved the way for him to Leipzig”.
Hateful banners against Eberl could already be seen in the stands in February 2023 at Leipzig’s away game at 1. FC Köln and at home against Union Berlin. In the first leg against Gladbach in September 2022, when Eberl was still on his self-chosen time-out, there were similar banners in Borussia Park.
The supporters of the traditional clubs reject the RB construct – in the case of Borussia there is also the personal disappointment that a Ur-Gladbacher had opted for the upstart steered by a beverage giant.
Consequently, Sottocultura called for smuggling whistles into the stadium and loudly expressing the protest in the first 19 minutes. Gladbach’s managing director Stephan Schippers appealed to the supporters: “We don’t want to deny anyone the right to express their opinions, but we expect this to take place above the belt.”
Soothing attempts from Gladbach
Eberl’s successor Roland Virkus demanded almost exactly the same: “Emotions are part of football, everyone is allowed to speak their mind. But everything has to stay above the waistline.”
Leipzig coach Marco Rose, who looked after Gladbach from 2019 to 2021 and had also been attacked in the past, seemed to want more clarity in the words of the Gladbach bosses. “I would like it better if the ‘but’ didn’t come at the end: freedom of expression is allowed and peaceful protests. This ‘but’ is always at the end when it comes to us. But we can deal with that too.”said the coach.
Change of heart after engagement in Saxony
Eberl has had to face criticism that is understandable in terms of content in the past few days – and his most recent statements about Leipzig’s transfer behavior could come up again on Saturday. After all, Eberl recently faltered when confronted with his words from 2016. This “Destruction of Players” from RB Salzburg to sister club Leipzig, Eberl said at the time, “has a bad aftertaste”.
Now his opinion has changed. “The world has moved on”Eberl said after the former critic made use of exactly this connection when signing midfielder Nicolas Seiwald on his first transfer. “I said something about it as an opponent at the time – we are seven years ahead”, according to Eberl. But fans don’t forget that easily.