BInsults and a bitter defeat: Marco Rose experienced a very bitter evening on his return to Mönchengladbach. A week after his fantastic debut as the new coach of RB Leipzig, his team lost 3-0 (2-0) in an emotionally charged game at his former club Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday evening. Two goals from national player Jonas Hofmann (10th minute/35th) and a wonderful lob from Ramy Bensebaini (53rd) sealed Borussia’s third home win in a row against Leipzig. On the last day of the game, Rose started with a 3-0 win over his other former club, Borussia Dortmund.
With only eight points from seven games, the cup winner and Champions League participant is still lagging behind expectations. Coach Daniel Farke’s team from Mönchengladbach, on the other hand, has twelve points in contact with the top group in the Bundesliga and jumped to sixth place in the table. The mood in Borussia Park in front of 50,186 spectators was particularly heated because of the personal details of Rose and Max Eberl. Rose was whistled at when entering the interior shortly before the game started and was later verbally abused in fan chants.
Gladbach fan rage
After leaving Mönchengladbach in 2021, the Leipzig coach also lost with his former club Borussia Dortmund almost exactly a year ago (0-1). Even then, due to the corona, he felt fan anger in a stadium that was only half full at the time.
The Gladbach fan curve also worked on the former manager Eberl. Last week, the Borussia fan project settled accounts with Eberl in a scathing open letter about his forthcoming switch to lawn ball sports. In it, the long-time Gladbach sports director, who said he had retired in January for health reasons, was accused of lying, among other things.
It was also very busy in the stadium. Eberl was verbally abused on posters. The stadium announcer even warned the fans in the curve to take down a poster, otherwise referee Patrick Ittrich would interrupt the game. It said: “A son-of-a-bitch association only hires sons of a bitch.” In fact, it was taken down shortly afterwards. Others read: “Months of playing poker with a construct without a soul – Max Eberl, your change of heart makes us sick” and “Nobody here will ever forget where we come from – and where you want to go, you characterless asshole”.
During his time in Mönchengladbach, Eberl had always harshly criticized the RB construct with many interconnected teams from the Red Bull cosmos. According to Leipzig’s managing director Oliver Mintzlaff, negotiations with Gladbach about Eberl joining the Saxons are nearing completion.
At least the Borussia pros didn’t allow themselves to be irritated by the unrest. Gladbach was clearly superior. Among the guests, who lost 2-0 at Real Madrid in the Champions League last week, left-back David Raum in particular had a bad day. Before the 0:1, the national player made a crucial mistake. Goalscorer Hofmann added a good 20 minutes to the 3-1 win over Leipzig last season. After repeated preliminary work by Marcus Thuram, who was also strong, Hofmann successfully completed a counterattack and scored his sixth Bundesliga goal against RB. Only Robert Lewandowski (7) has scored more often against Leipzig.
In Xaver Schlager and Timo Werner, Rose brought in two more strong players at the break, whom he had initially rested. Leipzig became more offensive, but didn’t have many more chances against convincing Borussia. Bensebaini’s lob over RB goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi for an early preliminary decision was particularly worth seeing.
