Pressure on FC Bayern is growing
Max Eberl doesn’t want to talk about Thomas Müller – and is chatting?
Max Eberl doesn’t want to talk about Thomas Müller – and is chatting?
04.04.2025, 11:35 a.m.
At Bayern there are plenty of topics these days. The injured misery, for example. But these are only in the shadow of two other big discussions: what’s next with club icon Thomas Müller and what about sports director Max Eberl?
After a good 17 minutes on the podium, Max Eberl was enough, although it was not about the largest topic in German football for so long. When asked about the hotly discussed future of club icon Thomas Müller – through the front door, the back door or anywhere else – the sports director no longer may react. “How many questions do I have to answer,” he said with a pinched smile towards the Munich press spokes Dieter Nickles, in order to then answer the journalist with a slightly annoyed voice: “We say if there is something to announce. And then we explain.”
Before that, he had already made it clear: “Thomas is a special personnel, a great player of FC Bayern. But I won’t talk about Thomas here.” Just talk to each other. Now it was like this: “Neither Thomas nor we have something to announce.” Basically, Eberl spoke to the club icon of a “very special situation” and added: “I have already had a lot of players where you have to say at some point: maybe it is over – but we will do that together when the time comes.” Huch, chattered? In fact, this hardly allows any other conclusion than that the “servus” by Müller is really already decided.
The record champions still walled at the Müller personnel. The discussions about how to proceed for the 35-year-old has long since achieved the status of the national matter. Almost every voice in football says what he thinks about how to deal with the record champions with his record player. The tenor is “unworthy” what happens there (which, among other things, initiated the colleague Stephan Uersfeld). “The allegations come from outside, everyone has an opinion about everything,” Eberl emphasized now. “We do our work internally and try to discuss everything. Gratitude is always there.”
According to the media, it has long been clear that the last big football entertainer has to leave the club in summer. A new contract should no longer be offered to him. Eberl dislikes this “anticipation” of decisions and reviews. The conversations became surprisingly “leaked”. Not for the first time this season. The extension of Joshua Kimmich also became a continuous source of unrest on Säbener Straße.
Eberl on critical reports: “I can’t get that way”
The pressure that is on FC Bayern is enormous. The club has lost sovereignty over the Müller personnel. Now it can only be about keeping the damage within limits. In particular, negotiator Eberl focuses on. As much is now being made about him and his future as opinions on the Müller case are spread. The scenarios are sometimes bird game, even a “big bang” seems conceivable.
“In fact, I can’t get it like that. It is carried out when I prepare for a PK,” said Eberl about the media reports who want to know about inconsistencies with the powerful supervisory board and internal criticism. “My whole focus is on FC Bayern and the decisions that are in front of us. It is not one-man show, we make decisions together. I’ve received a lot since I was at Bayern. I perceive that, but I do my job as much as possible. The club is over everyone. I can influence everything else.”
That the media round, which was actually scheduled as a matchday press conference, would of course not be surprising. Even if there are some other topics that affect Bayern. The great misery. “The boys who were not there against St. Pauli are not available,” he said. Captain Manuel Neuer (Wade), Dayot upamecano (knee), Alphonso Davies (cruciate ligament rupture), Hiroki Ito (midfoot break), Aleksandar Pavlović (Pfeiffersches glandular fever) and Kingsley Coman (foot stimulation) are still missing. But there is good news from the last stricken players: Min-Jae Kim, Raphael Guerreiro and Leon Goretzka will be at the Bundesliga derby on Friday (8:30 p.m.) at FC Augsburg.
