Salzburg (dpa) – Bayern Munich’s honorary president Uli Hoeneß considers a comeback of the long-time Gladbach sports director Max Eberl in professional football to be possible. “I am very close friends with Max Eberl. I’m sure he’s on vacation now. He will come back at some point and will continue to be able to do a good job,” said 70-year-old Hoeneß on Monday evening in Salzburg on the program “Sport and Talk from Hangar-7” on Servus TV.

The 48-year-old Eberl retired from his post at Bundesliga club Borussia Mönchengladbach at the end of January for health reasons. The reason was an exhaustion syndrome. “It’s a special situation, a lot of things came together,” said Hoeneß. Management jobs in football are “very nerve-wracking” and would also cost “a lot of strength”, remarked Hoeneß, who shaped FC Bayern in positions for 40 years: “But to say now, because it came together in such a way that it is inhuman, that you can do it I can’t stand it, I don’t see it that way.”

For Hoeneß, there was a particularly different constellation at Eberl: “They came together. Gladbach has always made a living from bringing players and selling them for a fee. Now they have found that three important contracts are expiring and they get nothing. Suddenly there was pressure that didn’t exist before. They used to play for the Champions League, now they have to look downstairs. All of that came together with Max.”

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