Bayern Munich’s executive board member for sport Max Eberl has been a lightning rod for criticism in the fanbase. But, as a recent report from Sport Bild outlines, Eberl has not had an easy road to navigate either — with simultaneous imperatives to lock down stars as Joshua Kimmich and Jamal Musiala, and to cut down on a wage bill despite record revenues.
Via @iMiaSanMia:
In summary, Max Eberl is faced with a tough task in reconstructing the squad. He has to reduce the squad costs, while at the same time maintaining or improving the quality. For Kimmich and Musiala, an important factor to extend their contracts is to have a squad capable of competing for the Champions League title in the coming years [@altobelli13, @cfbayern]
BFW Analysis
Nobody said life as a Bayern Munich sporting boss would be easy. And for Eberl it certainly has not been.
Eberl arrived midseason, less than a year after his predecessors were unceremoniously sacked — after having felt the win-now pressure and ejected a promising coach they had previously gone all in on, setting a record transfer fee at the time to obtain. He had to deal with a winter transfer window shepherded by sporting director Christoph Freund, who wasn’t even in place for the prior transfer window, when Bayern splashed out almost €100M on Harry Kane. And he came in when the head coach, Thomas Tuchel, was already basically on the outs.
Bayern is chaos, and Eberl has been tasked to impose order. Easier said than done. While Julian Nagelsmann is now doing wonders with the Germany men’s national team, his vaunted 2022 summer transfer window is 0/5: Sadio Mané, Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui, Ryan Gravenberch, and maybe even Mathys Tel all either long gone or about to leave.
Eberl didn’t sign Kingsley Coman, Serge Gnabry, or Leon Goretzka to bumper contract extensions that have made all of them not easy to move — as well as reluctant to leave. But he is the one tasked with bringing wages in line while extending other stars. Joshua Kimmich, Jamal Musiala, and Alphonso Davies — the last of whom was close to an extension before Bayern blew it all up in 2022 — all are at peak stock, and all of them would be logical to want to see something convincing from the Bayern sporting planners before committing.
If recent reports are to be believed, internal pressure is just beginning to mount on Eberl. It is still too early to see if there is anything to that; safer-looking staff have been suddenly axed before with all the recriminations and insinuations leaking out after. But if it pans out, then Bayern is a club that is operating the same way it did when it jettisoned continuity time and time again in recent years.
At some point we may find out if that ruthlessness is in fact the secret ingredient to all of Bayern’s success. Or if there are only so many sledgehammers one can direct at their own house before the foundations begin to rock.
