Borussia Mönchengladbach is facing the biggest upheaval in the club’s recent history. How did this come about – and what events led to it? Chronology of a Decay.
“We must never forget where we come from and what a great development lies behind us.” Jonas Hofmann’s words in the t-online interview were, of course, calculated understatements. Nevertheless, they said a lot about Borussia Mönchengladbach’s reputation.
The Gladbachers have been one of the best-managed football clubs in Germany for a good 15 years, as a success story that grows by a chapter every year. Now the author of this success story has left the club. Max Eberl has resigned from his position as sporting director with immediate effect. The maker of modern Gladbach as we know it said in an emotional press conference that he was “tired and exhausted” and “didn’t want to have anything to do with football anymore”.
Eberl launched the attack in the summer
Ironically, that same Eberl had raised the expectations to a new level in the summer. After the foals their head trainer Marco Rose had to let go to the much larger namesake from Dortmund, he continued with the commitment of the Frankfurt coach Adi Hütter an exclamation mark: Gladbach transferred 7.5 million euros to the banking city to buy the Austrian out of his contract with Eintracht. Eberl obviously blew the attack.
But the start under the authoritarian Hütter went wrong. Gladbach found themselves in the middle of the table with their team, which had grown over the years – and had become more and more expensive – instead of settling comfortably in the Champions League ranks.
“Max Eberl recently emphasized again that Borussia Mönchengladbach never takes it for granted that it will reach the international places,” was another sentence that Jonas Hofmann said t-online in October 2021. However, one could not take him seriously given that the DFB national player has legitimate hopes of a place in the World Cup and his club has made the leap to Europe five times in the past ten seasons.
The Bayern Gala was followed by bankruptcies, bad luck and breakdowns
On the Lower Rhine, however, they cultivated this humility – only to celebrate their own successes all the louder. And it almost seemed as if the trend reversal would actually come after Hofmann’s interview. The 5:0 cup storm against the FC Bayern was a superbly written, gripping first paragraph of the latest hit chapter. Only: after that only bankruptcies, bad luck and breakdowns followed.
First of all, there is the most obvious undesirable development of the past few months, the sporting one under coach Hütter. After the 20th Bundesliga matchday, Borussia has just 22 points on the account. The cushion on a direct relegation zone is dangerously thin with four points. Only tail light Fürth (52) and Chaosklub Hertha BSC (42) have conceded more goals than Gladbach (37).
Also the glimmer of hope DFB-Pokal faded suddenly. In the round of 16, the Bayern victors suffered a juicy 3-0 defeat Hannover 96 – a second division in the lower middle of the table, mind you.
Hütter has not been able to pick up the team with a constant line for weeks. Sometimes he uses a 4-2-3-1 to force the wing game through a manpower, sometimes he uses a 3-4-2-1 for defensive protection and explosive switching when he wins the ball. What sounds good in theory, however, is not implemented by the players. Which brings us to Gladbach’s second big problem.
Eberl’s farewell is only logical
Many players see Borussia as an intermediate step in their career, as a kind of booster for market value and performance. So too Denis Zakaria and Matthias Ginter. The contracts of the two defensive specialists expire next summer – and will not be extended. You will therefore leave Gladbach free of charge in a few months.
There was much discussion and conjecture about the pros and cons of these decisions. The fact is: Zakaria and Ginter can’t really take their decision badly. Both were top performers at Borussia for several years and have proven their class under changing coaches. They have realized that the association has faltered. And they don’t want to stagnate with him.
Eberl is largely responsible for the fact that Gladbach got into this predicament. He provided Rose with an exit clause that made his move to Dortmund possible in the first place. He put more money on the table for Hütter than for some players and he couldn’t keep players like Zakaria and Ginter.
Gladbach is now facing one of the biggest upheavals in the club’s recent history. However, Eberl will no longer be responsible for this. He wants to find himself as his own person, to see the world, as he explained when he left Borussia Park. It’s a consistent, noteworthy step in the midst of a dramatic process of disintegration.
