Markus Krösche’s name burst onto the AC Milan scene and has never really fully gone away, especially in light of recent reports.
It may be a case of there being no smoke without fire on the Krösche front. Matteo Moretto confirmed earlier today that Gerry Cardinale is working to improve the club’s structure as he wants a ‘world-class sports organisation’.
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The profile of Krösche – still at Eintracht Frankfurt, who was linked in the summer ‘remains a strong contender’ for a potential role as either a Head/Director of Football or as the more typical Technical Director.
Last summer, Eintracht Frankfurt president and supervisory board chairman Mathias Beck told BILD that Milan had approached him about hiring Krösche. He added that the director would remain in Frankfurt until at least 2028, the year his contract expires.
“No one from AC Milan has contacted us about Markus Krosche. And we, as the Eintracht Frankfurt management committee, after consulting with Krosche, have no indication that he wants to leave Eintracht before his contract expires in 2028,” he said.
Now the right time?
Calciomercato.com now report that due to a weakening relationship with the fans, Krosche is now less certain about staying at Eintracht Frankfurt and could push for a new professional step.
Before becoming an executive, Krosche was a midfielder, starting from the Werder Bremen youth team and then becoming a legend at Paderborn. He went from player to coach instantly, because in the year of his retirement he took the reins of Paderborn’s second team.
The time came to love his beloved Paderborn to step up into a new adventure, following his former team-mate and coach Roger Schmidt to Bayer Leverkusen. He spent less than two years there, until March 2017, when he was sacked by Leverkusen.
He returned to Paderborn as sporting director and began a ‘third career’ in football. From the third tier, he led Paderborn back to the Bundesliga, and in 2019 he was called by RB Leipzig to replace Ralf Rangnick. He led them to the Champions League semi-finals in 2021, the year he resigned a year before his contract expired.
He arrived at Eintracht Frankfurt , where in four years he built a path that led to the conquest of the Europa League in 2022 and third place in 2025. In Frankfurt he proved himself skilled at spotting talents and selling them for a lot of money.
Krosche became known as the ‘king of capital gains’ in the Bundesliga. There were sales like Randal Kolo Muani and Omar Marmoush, both of whom came for for free and resold for €95m and €75m respectively to PSG and Manchester City.
Hugo Ekitike was bought for over €30m from PSG, but sold for €95m to Liverpool. Then there is Willian Pacho, discovered in Antwerp and brought to Germany for €13m, before being sold to PSG for €40m.
While talent identification is an area that Milan could do with some help in, an aspect they really lacked in this summer was effectively selling players to replenish the budget. Krösche ticks that box.
Just one look at that transfers image tells you that they did the same even before him? Has he built anything like he needs to at Milan? Or just took over an already working scouting and transfers system?
Magic Words “Capital Gains”
As a die hard Milan fan… We are doomed