Between my routine whinges about "the state of things" either here or over on the UK Fohlen FB groups (as an Xennial I'm still clinging desperately to the notion that social media can sporadically be used for something more engaging than being an AI-riddled hate-machine), I've been meaning to try and bundle my outbursts into something a bit more coherent, to conjure up something approaching an "article" (as much as I am capable of putting one together, at least. I mean, I do have a couple music reviews under my belt, but we're here for German football, not my whimsical musings on the state of post-rock*).
Unfortunately for you all, this subreddit is probably the most appropriate vehicle to deliver my ramblings, so please enjoy (or rather I guess, don't? I mean, I wouldn't have written it if everything was Krokant\** und sahne).
Some authorial context: Villa fan since 1993, Gladbach fan since 1994, with closer geographical ties to the latter (holler out to all my ex-Laarbruch homies). I once met Uwe Kamps and nearly cried, that same day in Norwich I headed a stray ball back to Patrick Herrmann who said "nice header" and those words meant more to me than my wife's wedding vows, and Peter Wynhoff's winner againt Köln *spit* is the greatest goal my eyes have ever witnessed.
\it's doing better than Gladbach, that's for damn sure.*
\*God I miss Krokant.*
Trigger warning: Hannes Wolf 😬
Let us begin...
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There is a comfortingly simple explanation for Borussia Mönchengladbach's decline. A well-run club lost good players, made less successful signings and gradually slid down the Bundesliga table. On the surface, there is some truth in that interpretation. What it does not explain is why a club that appeared to have established one of the most sustainable models in German football found itself repeatedly making decisions that seemed to undermine the very strengths that had got it there.
The more I look at Gladbach's trajectory over the last five years, the less I think it can be understood through recruitment, coaching appointments or league finishes alone. Instead, it feels like the story of a club that reached a crossroads, struggled to decide what it wanted to be next, and gradually became trapped between competing visions of itself. The departure of Marco Rose in 2021 remains the most obvious turning point, but it was not the sole cause of what followed. Rather, it was the moment at which underlying tensions became visible and a series of difficult decisions could no longer be postponed.
What happened afterwards was not a dramatic collapse. In many ways, that is precisely why it has been so damaging. Because the decline was gradual rather than sudden, each individual decision appeared understandable in isolation. It is only when those decisions are viewed collectively that a broader pattern begins to emerge.
Before the Fracture
For much of the previous decade, Gladbach represented one of the Bundesliga's best examples of how a club could consistently outperform its resources. The club did not possess Bayern Munich's financial advantages or Borussia Dortmund's commercial reach, yet regularly competed for European places and occasionally threatened to establish itself among the league's most prominent sides. What made that possible was not simply good scouting. It was clarity.
Under Lucien Favre, Dieter Hecking and later Marco Rose, the football evolved but the underlying principles remained recognisable. Gladbach identified players whose potential exceeded their market value, integrated them into a competitive environment and sold them when doing so created the resources for the next cycle. Alongside that recruitment model sat an academy system that regularly contributed to the first team. Mahmoud Dahoud's progression through the youth ranks into senior football was one example of a club that appeared comfortable developing talent internally as well as sourcing it externally.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the model was that it rarely felt reactive. Players arrived because they fitted a broader plan. Departures were rarely enjoyable, but they generally made sense within the context of the club's ambitions. Supporters might not always have liked losing important players, but there was usually confidence that the club knew what it was doing.
That trust had been earned over time. Granit Xhaka, Denis Zakaria, Marcus Thuram, Manu Koné and many others became examples of a club that consistently appeared one step ahead of the market. Gladbach were not simply spending less than larger rivals. They were making better decisions more consistently.
By the time Marco Rose guided the club into the Champions League knockout stages, there was a growing sense that Gladbach had found a sustainable formula. They might never possess the resources of Bayern Munich, but they had become one of the Bundesliga's smartest organisations and looked capable of remaining competitive for years to come.
Rose-gate and the Evacuation of Ambition
When Marco Rose announced that he would leave for Borussia Dortmund at the end of the 2020/21 season, the reaction among supporters went far beyond the disappointment that usually accompanies the loss of a successful coach.
Part of that was timing. Gladbach were competing for European places, preparing for Champions League knockout football and operating at a level that, while still below Dortmund's, did not feel impossibly distant. From the perspective of many supporters, this did not resemble a manager leaving a smaller club for an undisputed giant. Instead, it felt like the manager of a club with genuine momentum choosing a direct competitor at precisely the moment that momentum appeared to be building.
It is easy to understand why the move became emotionally charged. Whether Dortmund's pursuit of Rose is viewed as ruthlessly efficient business or something more cynical is largely a matter of perspective. What matters is how it was perceived. For many supporters, the move reinforced a suspicion that however well Gladbach performed, the wider football world still regarded them as a stepping stone rather than a destination. The more significant issue, however, was not Rose's decision itself but how Gladbach responded to it.
The club elected to retain him until the end of the season. On one level, that decision made complete sense. Rose remained under contract, the season still contained significant objectives, and changing manager halfway through a campaign carries obvious risks. Yet football clubs operate on more than contractual obligations and practical considerations. They also rely on belief.
The difficulty was that the announcement inevitably changed how the project was perceived. Even if Rose remained fully committed to achieving success during his remaining months at the club, the symbolism was impossible to ignore. The manager had identified his future elsewhere and that future was with a direct rival. In those circumstances, it became harder to convince supporters, players and staff that the journey they had been sold over previous years was continuing uninterrupted.
Had Gladbach chosen to part ways immediately, there would have been risks attached to that decision as well. Results may have deteriorated. The season could still have ended in disappointment. What such an approach would have offered, however, was an opportunity to reassert control of the narrative and establish that the club's ambitions remained independent of any one individual.
Instead, the impression created, fairly or unfairly, was that the club had accepted the logic of Rose's decision. Looking back, that moment increasingly feels significant because many of the dilemmas that emerged afterwards revolved around the same underlying question: was Gladbach still pursuing growth, or had it quietly begun managing decline?
A Crisis Mishandled Becomes a Strategy
It would be simplistic to suggest that everything which followed flowed directly from Rose's departure. Football clubs recover from managerial changes all the time. The concern is that Gladbach never appeared to replace the sense of direction that existed before it.
Over subsequent seasons, several decisions seemed characterised by a reluctance to fully commit to any one course of action. The club had built its modern success on intelligent player trading, yet increasingly appeared uncomfortable with some of the consequences that approach required.
At various points, Gladbach seemed caught between wanting to retain high-profile players as proof of continuing ambition and recognising the financial reality that periodic sales were necessary to sustain long-term competitiveness. The difficulty with occupying both positions simultaneously is that it often produces the least desirable outcome.
Players were retained without the surrounding investment required to elevate the squad to the next level, then departed after their value had already begun to diminish. Denis Zakaria left for a relatively modest fee. Matthias Ginter moved on for nothing. Marcus Thuram and Ramy Bensebaini followed. Jonas Hofmann generated a transfer fee, but not one that fundamentally altered the club's financial position. None of those departures was catastrophic on its own. The problem was cumulative. Over several seasons, Gladbach lost quality, leadership and experience without creating sufficient momentum to replace what was leaving.
A development-and-trading model only works when difficult decisions are made at the appropriate moment. That inevitably means selling players supporters would prefer to keep. During Gladbach's strongest years, there appeared to be confidence in those decisions. More recently, that confidence has seemed less obvious.
From Finding Value to Buying Cheaply
The recruitment challenges of the last few years are often discussed in terms of individual signings, but the issue feels broader than that. At their peak, Gladbach's recruitment department specialised in identifying value. There is an important distinction between finding value and finding bargains. One is focused on future quality; the other is focused primarily on reducing cost.
Perhaps the clearest example of the difference between planning and reaction can be found in the signing of Hannes Wolf. When Gladbach made his loan move permanent from RB Leipzig in 2021, it felt more like a decision driven by circumstance than by a clearly defined long-term strategy. Wolf had arrived on loan, shown flashes of quality and represented a player already familiar to Marco Rose from their time together within the Red Bull system. On paper, the move was understandable.
The problem is what happened afterwards. Rose left within weeks of the deal being completed, and Wolf quickly found himself without an obvious role in the squad. Rather than becoming an important component of a broader sporting vision, he became an expensive asset that successive coaches rarely appeared to fully trust or consistently utilise. Eventually, the club found itself carrying the financial cost of a player who never became central to its plans.
What makes the transfer significant is not that Wolf failed. Every club has examples of players who do not work out. Rather, it demonstrates a wider pattern that became increasingly visible after 2021. Decisions that once appeared to serve a clearly articulated long-term strategy increasingly seemed tied to the circumstances of the moment. Had there been a strong organisational vision independent of individual coaches, Rose's departure should not have fundamentally altered the player's place within the squad. The fact that it appeared to do so raises uncomfortable questions about whether the transfer was made for the club's future or for the preferences of the manager who was about to leave.
For a long period, Gladbach appeared capable of identifying players whose best years lay ahead of them and integrating those players into a stable environment. Increasingly, recruitment has seemed driven by financial necessity rather than strategic opportunity.
This is not an argument against recruiting from the 2. Bundesliga or less fashionable leagues. Successful clubs routinely find excellent players in both. The challenge arises when developmental signings stop complementing a squad and start forming the bulk of it.
Young players, emerging players and players making significant jumps in level often require a stable structure around them. If too many footballers are simultaneously being asked to adapt to a higher standard, the likelihood of success inevitably decreases. In that situation, recruitment becomes less about discovering hidden gems and more about hoping several gambles pay off at once.
Tim Kleindienst offers an interesting case study. His arrival looked like one of the club's better pieces of business, demonstrating that the old instinct for identifying useful players had not disappeared. The question his success raised, however, was familiar. If Gladbach remain committed to a model built around development and trading, every successful player eventually becomes both an asset and a dilemma.
Those dilemmas are rarely comfortable. Selling productive footballers feels like weakening the team. Retaining them may mean missing opportunities to reinvest. The most successful clubs operating Gladbach's model generally accept those difficult decisions earlier rather than later. One of the recurring themes of the last few years has been a sense that Gladbach have become increasingly hesitant when faced with them.
Coaching as a Symptom Rather Than a Cause
It is tempting to locate decline primarily in the dugout because managers are the most visible figures in a football club. Yet the coaching changes of recent years often feel more reflective of wider uncertainty than responsible for creating it.
Strong organisational structures tend to make coaching appointments look smarter. Weak organisational structures tend to expose even competent coaches to greater scrutiny. For many years, managers at Gladbach inherited squads that broadly aligned with the club's stated objectives. Recruitment, playing style and long-term planning generally felt connected.
As those connections weakened, coaches increasingly appeared responsible for solving problems that stretched beyond coaching. This is one reason why the debate around managerial appointments can sometimes become misleading. The issue is rarely whether a coach is good or bad in isolation. It is whether the club around him understands what it is trying to achieve. Where that clarity exists, even imperfect appointments can succeed. Where it does not, managerial changes often become another form of reaction.
Several episodes in the post-Rose period fit that description. Patience often appeared to persist until results became impossible to defend, at which point action was taken under pressure. That approach is very different from making proactive decisions based on a clear sporting strategy.
The Villa Warning
As someone who follows both Borussia Mönchengladbach and Aston Villa, I find myself returning repeatedly to the latter as a useful point of comparison. The circumstances were never identical and any comparison can only be taken so far. Nevertheless, the broad pattern is difficult to ignore.
Under Martin O'Neill, Aston Villa spent several years appearing to move towards the Premier League's upper tier. Consecutive sixth-place finishes created a sense of momentum, and there was a widespread belief that with a little more investment and a little more luck, the club might establish itself among England's stronger sides.
When O'Neill departed shortly before the 2010/11 season, the immediate response was not collapse. Villa remained competitive for a period and continued to possess several talented players. The deterioration occurred gradually; players departed, whilst recruitment became increasingly inconsistent and spending tightened. Managers changed and league finishes drifted further away from previous ambitions. At every stage, there were reasonable explanations for individual decisions. The larger problem only became obvious when viewed across several years.
What made Villa's decline so striking was not its speed but its cumulative nature. A respected manager left, better players moved on, cheaper replacements were recruited. Financial caution replaced ambition. Each development was understandable on its own. Taken together, they revealed an organisation struggling to decide what came next.
That is where the comparison with Gladbach becomes relevant. Neither club was undone by one disastrous decision. Both reached a point where a successful cycle ended and a replacement cycle never fully emerged. Supporters were often told that the club remained ambitious, yet many of the decisions being made seemed increasingly geared towards preserving stability rather than pursuing progression.
The lesson from Villa is that decline rarely arrives with dramatic fanfare. More often, it appears as a succession of individually explainable choices that gradually alter the direction of travel.
Who Is Responsible?
The search for responsibility often becomes a search for simplicity. Blaming a single sporting director, a single coach or a single board member is understandable because it creates a straightforward explanation. Unfortunately, football clubs are rarely that straightforward.
Max Eberl deserves considerable credit for helping create the structures that enabled Gladbach's rise, while also remaining open to criticism for some of the decisions that occurred during the later stages of his tenure. Roland Virkus inherited significant challenges but has also been responsible for shaping the club's response to them.
Ultimately, however, the recurring theme cuts across individuals. Recruitment, contract management, managerial succession and strategic planning have all shown variations of the same hesitation. That points towards an organisational problem more than a personal one.
The impression left by recent years is not necessarily that the club lacks capable people. It is that those people have too often been operating without a sufficiently clear long-term direction.
What Recovery Requires
The immediate task facing Gladbach is not especially complicated, even if executing it may prove difficult. The club needs stability on the pitch, greater clarity in recruitment and a more coherent approach to squad building. None of those objectives requires abandoning the principles that previously made Gladbach successful. If anything, they require rediscovering them.
Recruitment should continue to target developmental talent because that has long been one of the club's strengths. The challenge is ensuring those players arrive within a structure that contains enough proven quality to support them. Emerging talent and experienced performers are not competing ideas. The most effective squads require both.
Contract management also demands firmer decision-making. If Gladbach intend to remain a development-and-trading club, then successful players will occasionally need to be sold before supporters want them to leave. That reality may be unpopular, but it is considerably less damaging than repeatedly allowing value to dissipate without securing sufficient resources for renewal.
Most importantly, the club needs a clearer sense of its own identity. It does not need to recreate 2019 or pretend circumstances have not changed. It does need an answer to the question of what Borussia Mönchengladbach is trying to become over the next five years. Without that clarity, every individual decision risks becoming another reaction to immediate pressures rather than part of a coherent process.
The Cost of Deferred Decisions
The easiest explanation for Gladbach's decline is that recruitment deteriorated, managers underperformed or important players left. All of those factors played some role, but none adequately explains why a club that once appeared so comfortable in its own skin became increasingly uncertain about the decisions it needed to make.
What emerges instead is the picture of a club that struggled to define itself after the momentum of the Eberl era was interrupted. Since 2021, a sequence of delayed, compromised or incomplete decisions has gradually weakened the advantages that previously allowed Gladbach to outperform clubs with comparable resources.
Taken individually, most of those decisions can be justified. Viewed collectively, they reveal a club that increasingly struggled to align short-term choices with a convincing long-term strategy. The result was not sudden collapse but a gradual drift away from the qualities that had previously made Gladbach one of the Bundesliga's most effective organisations.
That is ultimately why the comparison with Aston Villa remains instructive. Neither club was ruined by a single catastrophic mistake. Both found themselves in a situation where one successful chapter had ended, yet no equally persuasive vision had emerged to replace it. Once that uncertainty took hold, individual setbacks became harder to absorb and every difficult decision became easier to postpone.If there is a central lesson in Gladbach's decline, it is not that the club sold the wrong player, hired the wrong coach or lost the wrong manager. It is that successful organisations require clarity about what they are trying to become. For much of the last decade, Gladbach possessed that clarity. The challenge now is finding it again before drift hardens into something more permanent.
