"I think Max has opened up more within the club over the past six months. All of us - Karl-Heinz and I, and of course Herbert Hainer too - have been kept much better informed by him about everything than was previously the case," Hoeneß said on Monday evening at a gala marking the 80th anniversary of FC Bayern's basketball department. Like president Herbert Hainer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Hoeneß sits on the powerful supervisory board at the Munich club.
Earlier in the year, though, Eberl had cut an isolated figure at FC Bayern, according to Hoeneß. "We didn't like that. But he has fundamentally changed that. In that respect, he has done a superb job."
At the end of May, just before the DFB Cup final against VfB Stuttgart, Hoeneß was still critical of Eberl. He said there were "doubts" about his work, and put his chances of a new contract at only "60-40" in an interview with Spiegel. By the end of July, though, during the training camp at Tegernsee, Hoeneß had already insisted Eberl's chances of an extension had risen to "100 per cent".
Uli Hoeneß praises Max Eberl for FC Bayern's summer transfers
Now Hoeneß has revealed he got "enough trouble" internally for that remark: "But if I had said 80 per cent that day, there would have been even more trouble. So that was an answer between the devil and the deep blue sea."
He put that rapid rise in Eberl's standing down not only to his improved communication but also to Bayern getting their summer business done early. "He implemented our proposal 100 per cent, namely to sign the players as early as possible because they might be more expensive after the World Cup," Hoeneß said. Nathaniel Brown and Ismael Saibari moved to Munich for 50 million each at the beginning of July.
"The budget we had set - we wanted to invest up to around 50 million - has also come in under that figure. I think we only invested 30 million because almost 70 million came in through sales. So good work has been done there," Hoeneß concluded.