It is rare at FC Bayern that the supervisory board does not fulfill the wishes of the board of directors. And it has long been no secret that those in charge want Max Eberl.
Because Uli Hoeneß, the gray eminence of Tegernsee, who was in favor of the personnel anyway, also sits on that club committee, things happened very quickly at the meeting of the supervisory board this Monday. It is now official what has been unofficially decided for a long time: FC Bayern is appointing Eberl as the new sports director. He will receive a contract until June 30, 2027. “We are convinced that he will successfully shape and shape the future of this club,” Supervisory Board Chairman Herbert Hainer is quoted as saying in a Bayern press release.
It feels like Eberl has been back in Munich for almost half a year. Because after he was released from RB Leipzig at the end of September, he immediately showed up in Munich. Not really, although: That is also possible, but not on an official mission. After all, he is Bavarian and lived in Munich for a long time. But his name quickly appeared in the corridors of the club’s headquarters and thus also among the Munich public and in the media.
It’s an almost logical connection, because Eberl and the German record champions have a common past. He was trained in the FC Bayern youth team, went through all the junior teams and knows what makes the club tick, although it certainly works a little differently now than it did 30 or 35 years ago, but there is also that “stable smell” that doesn’t exist at FC Bayern is completely unimportant. Hoeneß had once considered Eberl as Matthias Sammer’s successor, but it wasn’t the right time for the honorary president’s preferred candidate.
There is a lot to do for Max Eberl
Now Eberl is truly here and will be moving into an office on Säbener Strasse in the next few days. It’s “something special to now be returning to the club where it all started in a new role,” he explains – and he probably doesn’t arrive at FC Bayern completely unprepared. Eberl last sat in the stands at Munich’s Bundesliga game in Augsburg at the end of January, and it was already clear back then that there was a lot to do for the future sports director. Well, three defeats and an announced separation from the coach later, there is still more to do.
Bayern not only need a successor to Thomas Tuchel in the summer, but also a few new players and a new identity that can be the same as the old one. The one that brought Bayern a lot of titles over the past eleven years, but seems to have somehow been lost recently. It requires a thorough modernization or, as CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen put it a few days ago, a “realignment”.
Unlike the coach, the players don’t yet know exactly what the club plans to do with them at the end of the season. With the possible exception of Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Bouna Sarr, whose contracts are expiring. Nobody in the club wanted to anticipate Eberl, but the “Kicker” claims to have learned that the club plans to part with at least five players in connection with the restructuring of the squad, not counting Choupo-Moting and Sarr.
Eberl once felt firsthand what it meant to play for FC Bayern. In October 1991, the club had just hired Sören Lerby as head coach after a disastrous start to the season. The still inexperienced Dane listened to Hermann Gerland’s advice and fielded Eberl, an 18-year-old debutant, against VfB Stuttgart. “That made me a little nervous,” Eberl later recalled.
Overwhelmed with the task of integrating into a team that was already dysfunctional, he was substituted during the break and never played again with Bayern’s first team. Eberl later became a solid Bundesliga player, but then a much better manager at Borussia Mönchengladbach – with a good feel for the right players.
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His image may have suffered as a result of his short stint at RB Leipzig, but his managerial skills probably didn’t. However, the requirements at FC Bayern are different and higher than they were in Gladbach, both when looking for players and coaches. “A lot of respect and humility” accompanies him in his task, said Eberl. “The job as sports director is a big challenge.” He seems to know what he is getting into.