When Max Wöber accepted Jesse Marsch’s invitation to fix his defence at Fizzy Salzburg, he made it clear he wasn’t going to let sentiment stand in the way of his career. Wöber’s first professional club was Rapid Wien, the team he supported as a boy. Their fans were repulsed by the idea of him joining the Austrian Franchise, bombarding him with threats and insults after his personal mobile number had been leaked.
“I don’t have to justify to any Rapid fan what I do with my career, with my life,” Wöber said. He didn’t care whether they thought he was a ‘money-hungry pig’ or a ‘dirty traitor’, he was going to drink the bull’s piss.
So it’s not surprising that Wöber has said goodbye to a bunch of fellow losers taking advantage of the exit clauses in their contracts, checked the smallprint of his own deal after hearing of interest from Borussia Mönchengladbach, and told Leeds he won’t be hanging around in the Championship either. He only has one career, so he has the right to decide what’s best for it. I only support one football club, so I have the right to think he’s a shitebag.
Like every year for the last century — apart from those comparatively brief periods when we were blessed with Terry Cooper, Tony Dorigo, and Andy Hughes — Leeds went into 2023 desperately needing a left-back. Marsch phoned Wöber while he was on holiday at Christmas, and before the January transfer window was even a week old, Leeds had spent £10m to solve the problem. Sure, Wöber had played far more at centre-half, but Leeds made a point on the official website of noting he ‘can operate at both left-back and centre-back’.
That seemed to confuse Jesse Marsch more than anyone else. While Wöber was preparing to make his debut as a substitute with Leeds 2-0 down in the FA Cup at Cardiff, Marsch, in his own words, “told him he was going in at centre-back, then left-back, then centre-back, then left-back — I probably changed my mind six times because I wanted him to have a good start and put him somewhere that he was most comfortable, which is probably centre-back. But I also know that he can be impactful at left-back in a big way.”
After all that, the king of clarity brought Wöber on in central midfield. This blog isn’t about Marsch, but honest to fucking god, how did that clown keep his job for so long?
To be fair to Max, he looked good and shouty, two qualities the team lacked, even if it quickly became apparent he wasn’t going to be the left-back we needed.
Wöber’s first start in the Premier League coincided with Leeds’ first clean sheet since George Graham was manager. During those initial appearances he played with a calm authority the defence so sorely lacked, telling Robin Koch who to mark, blocking shots before they reached Illan Meslier, and briefly achieving the previously impossible feat of making Junior Firpo look like a left-back.
Then he knackered his hamstring playing for Austria, right after Tyler Adams had been ruled out for the rest of the season with a similar injury, and everything went to shit. By the time he returned, Leeds had shipped eleven goals in consecutive home defeats and Wöber never really looked fully fit.
Leeds will do that to a centre-half.
Wöber’s early appeal was that he’s a fairly bog-standard, boring, sensible centre-half, so it’s hard to pick out a particular highlight. Seeing off Diego Llorente, I guess, although in years to come I’ll probably look back on Diego’s sheer insanity with more fondness.
Sam Allardyce spent the week leading up to Newcastle’s visit to Elland Road telling his players to stay on their feet and not dive into tackles. After a bright start in which Bill Ayling put Leeds a goal up, the atmosphere was sucked out of the ground by Pat Bamford’s penalty miss followed by Wöber diving into a tackle to concede the most predictable penalty a minute later.
To be fair to Max, I could barely get through Allardyce’s pressers without zoning out for the sake of my own sanity, so I almost admire him for not listening to a word he said.
Tyler Adams’ injury feels like the big sliding doors moment that could have saved Leeds from relegation. Maybe the same could be said for Wöber’s, if only to save Pascal Struijk from himself.
Would Leeds have lost 5-1 and 6-1 in back to back games against Crystal Palace and Liverpool with Wöber in the team? I’m going to say no. It might’ve only been 3-1 and 4-1.
Wöber couldn’t have picked a more apt image to post to Instagram alongside his farewell, celebrating a goal at Leeds alongside Marc Roca, Weston McKennie, Rasmus Kristensen, and Brenden Aaronson, with Robin Koch walking away in the background. He even suggested we’re justified in thinking he’s a shitebag:
View this post on Instagram
Again, his point about wanting to make the Austria squad for Euro 2024 is probably fair enough, although for the sake of pettiness it’s worth mentioning Austria have called up players from Watford and Bristol City this year. If a striker as pure Champo as Andreas Weimann can make their squad, maybe Max needn’t have worried.
After joining Gladbach, he told their official website:
“Borussia is an absolutely traditional club, which was always very interesting for me and I enjoyed watching – also because a lot of Austrians played here. It is an extremely attractive task that I am really looking forward to. I’m a fighter, a warrior on the field.
“I drop my life there. In addition, I think I can handle the ball quite well and control the game from behind. It’s always a bit weird to say that about yourself, but I think I’m a leader on the pitch. And I would like to bring that into my new team.”
Which sounds familiar to what he said when he joined Leeds while standing in front of the Billy Bremner quote ‘side before self, every time’:
“Some of my biggest strengths are my personality and character, I’m never going to give up on the pitch, I will leave it all out there, it doesn’t matter what score it is or if we are winning or losing, I’ll give everything for this badge.”
Presumably they left out the bit afterwards when he mumbled, “Except play in the Championship.”
As ever we can rely on Mat Klich to smell the Red-Bullshit:
😂
— Mateusz Klich blue_tick (@Cli5hy) August 1, 2023
Wöber has only been training under Daniel Farke for a couple of weeks, so I’m not sure what Farke has done to upset him so much. Reports suggest Leeds were keen to keep Wöber, and Farke sounded frustrated by his exit when speaking after the friendly with Monaco, no doubt not just because Wöber has told the club he’s off, but because he’s buggering off to the club that sacked Farke a couple of months ago. ⬢
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