IIn the first interview since his resignation as manager of Borussia Mönchengladbach and his time out due to exhaustion, Max Eberl has sharply criticized his former club. “Someone spoke up with me who was mentally ill, who was ill – and they don’t believe him. That’s the problem!” said the 49-year-old in an interview with the daily newspaper “Die Welt”. He had the impression “as if you didn’t really understand what I’m about – and above all: how I’m doing”.
He himself was “at peace,” added the future sports director of Bundesliga competitor RB Leipzig: “If I come back to the Gladbach stadium at some point, nobody can take away what I did there and what we achieved together. I can look everyone in the eye there. Whether they can do it, I don’t know.”
Eberl asked for help
Above all, the open letter from the Gladbach fan project, in which, among other things, doubts were raised about Eberl’s honesty regarding his exhaustion, hit the manager very hard. He could understand the disappointment about his move to RB Leipzig of all places, which this Saturday (3:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky) meets FC Augsburg, “but not that I’m accused of lying and theatrical play – and that the club does not immediately reject such a thing”. He is “very disappointed that people I’ve worked with almost every day for 23 years don’t believe me. I can not understand that”.
The fact that contact with Gladbach, who plays against Eintracht Frankfurt this Saturday (6.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky), has now largely been broken off, “hurt him at first”, but ultimately also helped him “to finish it”. , said Eberl: “I worked for years, and when I stopped working, it was over very quickly.”
The former professional also reported on his trips abroad and the psychic journey “to myself”. During his time off, he claimed “professional help”. “I also cried a lot.” At that time he also started to “write a diary. I still do that to this day.”
In August he felt “how football got me hooked again and how strength and energy came back”. Eberl does not see the fact that he is now in charge of the RB project, which he himself used to sharply criticize, as a big no-go: “In the end there is only one person you really have to be accountable for, and that is yourself. And I just have it I want to work for Leipzig.”
