Eintracht Frankfurt: Young manager Andy Möller defends himself against allegations

The question of whether Thomas Broich and Jérôme Polenz will remain youth coaches at Eintracht Frankfurt in the new football season was answered by Andreas Möller with a resounding yes a month ago.

That was how great the interest of the two in the Eintracht project seemed to the head of the Frankfurt Youth Training Center (NLZ).

"We already dealt with the details when planning the squad." Broich and Polenz gave him "huge anticipation for the new round" and "unbelievable commitment", according to Möller.

The ARD football and tactics expert Broich should continue to lead the U15 in Riederwald and his partner Polenz take over the U16. But nothing will come of it, both of them say goodbye early as prominent talent developers from Frankfurt. “We are very surprised ourselves. I don't know what's behind it, ”said Möller to the FAZ on Tuesday

Officially, the busy Broich is taking a break from the coaching job in order to "take it easy" in the future. The former professional soccer player told him that "the stress factor was too high for him," said Möller. Polenz, on the other hand, informed the NLZ manager that he had a lucrative offer from another Bundesliga club. This is apparently Hertha BSC. The junior coach will follow the outgoing Frankfurt sports director Fredi Bobic to the federal capital.

With their charisma and many ideas, Polenz and Broich were two anchor points as role models in the training of young people at the Riederwald. Both of them "with their young, dynamic nature and their expertise managed to inspire and develop our C-Juniors in a short time," said Möller, praising the team. Therefore their voluntary departure attracted a lot of attention and raised questions about the unity in the NLZ. Especially since Matthias Borst, the head of game conception, will no longer work for the newcomer in the future.

Like Bobic's confidante Sebastian Zelichowski, who guided Broich and Polenz to the Main, Borst is supposed to go to Berlin.

Due to the unrest that had occurred in the Riederwald, the Hessischer Rundfunk reported chaos-like conditions in the Eintracht NLZ.

“For God's sake, there can be no talk of chaos.

We are on the right track, ”Möller emphasized.

Möller in the criticism - and don't know why?

The 1990 world champion is now under fire - and doesn't know why? Broich and Polenz did not see the right perspective for the development of talent in Frankfurt. There was a lack of a game concept, were the allegations in the media report. Compared to Möller, he now says, the two should never have expressed doubts about the orientation and the learning content, on the contrary: he always read in interviews from Broich and Polenz, “How comfortable they feel in Frankfurt and how much fun they have Work makes". Möller points out that “our trainers have freedom of action within the framework of the game concept. You can make all decisions freely. ”“ The individual class of the player must come into play ”- this is the“ training philosophy ”of the NLZ leader.

When it comes to “shaping the future”, Möller “wants to place much more value on the fact that the talents gain additional match experience through test matches and participation in international tournaments. We want to offer the boys a very attractive NLZ with more competitions in order to make up for the lost year caused by the corona pandemic. ”Möller regrets that the professionals missed the Champions League. The associated participation of the U19s in the Uefa Youth League would have been "a huge story for us and the icing on the cake for this generation".

The Frankfurt executive board spokesman Axel Hellmann took Möller under protection. The decisive factor for him is not "what opportunities the NLZ manager had corona-related opportunities in the past twelve months, but what overall strategy the sports director uses to approach the youngsters," said Hellmann. The past twelve months had been difficult because there was no real game operation. “Where could development work have taken place there?

The spokesman for the board therefore finds the criticism “not justified”. At the same time, the Frankfurt executive board was “surprised” by the personnel development at the Riederwald. The local boss Möller is now looking for a new U16 coach after Helge Rasche will take over the U15. The NLZ leader was also said to have a lack of decisiveness. Möller replies: "I am more decisive than ever."