The FCZ rises as the clear leader in the second half of the season, but does not see itself as a title favorite. Blerim Dzemaili and Moritz Leitner became champions as young players. You find parallels to the current situation at FC Zurich.
Blerim Dzemaili wants another championship title with FCZ at the end of his career. It would be his third.
Seven points ahead of FC Basel, eight points ahead of defending champion YB: Leader FC Zürich started the second half of the season on Saturday at home against Servette with a comfortable cushion. But the club strives to maintain the game-by-game mode after the winter break.
Only a few FCZ squad players know what it’s like to become a champion. Fidan Aliti won the title with Sheriff Tiraspol in Moldova and with Skenderbeu in Albania, new defender Karol Mets in 2011 with Flora Tallinn in Estonia, Ante Coric triumphed four times with Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia.
And there is Moritz Leitner, who won the double in 2012 as a young substitute player with at least 23 appearances in competitive games at Borussia Dortmund. And of course Blerim Dzemaili, including 2006 and 2007 champion with FC Zurich. The two have internalized the club doctrine and dodge questions about championship ambitions masterfully. Dzemaili says YB has the strongest squad individually and the artificial turf is an advantage, and as a series champion is under pressure. And Leitner says: «I can read a table and I didn’t fall on my head. But I’ve often seen how fast it can go.” When he switched to FCZ last summer, he assumed that the Young Boys would dominate again.
Moritz Leitner could not really assert himself in the FCZ. He wants to play a more important role in the second half of the season.
At the beginning of his career, no one would have expected Moritz Leitner to end up playing football in Switzerland. At 18 he moved from 1860 Munich to Borussia Dortmund as a great talent, at 19 he became champion and cup winner, indicating his potential as a midfielder. But the great career prophesied by many was denied to him. He didn’t make it through at Dortmund and played alternately for Augsburg, Stuttgart, Lazio Rome and Norwich City.
In the end, things didn’t go as he wanted at Norwich either. Still the driving force behind promotion to the Premier League in 2019, Leitner was not used for almost two years until his departure last summer. The German speaks reflected about his career, mentions the many injuries that would have thrown him back again and again, sees himself as a personality matured by the setbacks.
Solidarity and a positive groove
At FCZ, too, Leitner hasn’t played the role one would expect him to have given his qualities. Blessings threw him back again, in the preliminary round he only played eight Super League games. “It’s my aim to have a stronger influence,” says Leitner. He likes it very much in Zurich, the mood in the club and in the team reminds him of what it was like in Dortmund ten years ago.
At that time, Borussia had an “incredible squad”, with many young footballers like Robert Lewandowski, Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gündogan and Mario Götze. “We came to the training ground every day with great joy, we had a great team spirit, the chemistry was right,” says Leitner. A groove developed that carried the team through the season. And coach Jürgen Klopp led the team with passion and rigor.
Moritz Leitner (3rd from right) played as a young supplementary player in the Dortmund championship team.
Leitner talks enthusiastically about Dortmund’s championship season at the time, but doesn’t want to compare it with the current situation at FCZ. “It doesn’t do justice to either team,” he says. The trainers, for example, are different characters. But what Jürgen Klopp and Zurich coach André Breitenreiter have in common: Both succeed in leaving their mark on their stations. “And the players know exactly how to behave on the field.”
Blerim Dzemaili also says that the coach is always crucial for success. “If, like André Breitenreiter, he has a game idea and can convey it to the team, that’s half the battle.” Dzemaili will be 36 years old in April. Even though he has achieved a lot as a footballer, he has always been overshadowed by other national players such as Alex Frei, Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka.
Dzemaili completed 69 international matches for Switzerland. With FCZ he was a cup winner and twice a champion, with Napoli he won the Italian cup twice, in Turkey he triumphed with Galatasaray in the league, cup and super cup. He says the league title with Zürich 2006 in the legendary game in Basel with Iulian Filipescu’s late winner was the most special triumph.
Gray hair, good shape
Dzemaili also mentions the “extremely young, talented” team when it comes to FCZ’s first championship title in 2006 after a quarter of a century. In fact, only Filipescu was experienced in 2006. Gökhan Inler, Steve von Bergen, Alhassane Keita, Raffael and Xavier Margairaz are other players who were encouraged and challenged by coach Lucien Favre at the time. Favre worked meticulously like Breitenreiter, says Dzemaili. “He drove us to top performance.”
Blerim Dzemaili (right) during the 2006/2007 championship season.
Before this season, Dzemaili didn’t have particularly high expectations after FCZ’s second half of the season, which was difficult again last spring; he registered how the club was considered by many to be a relegation candidate. In addition, he was mentally devastated because he injured his knee in preparation and was out for more than two months. “I didn’t know if I would ever get in shape again.”
The midfielder returned. And he benefited from not having to and not wanting to do everything on his own anymore because the team was doing well. The outside players Adrian Guerrero and Nikola Boranijasevic were valuable additions, says Dzemaili, because the two are ideal for the 3-5-2 system practiced by Breitenreiter. He likes this formation, knows it well from Italy. And he says: “We play attractive football. Just like back then under Lucien Favre.”
Dzemaili says he is in very good shape going into the second half of the season. But today he has to live healthier and more consciously than when he was 20, from time to time he is happy to take a break from the game, and his hair has also become significantly grayer. Coach Breitenreiter not only appreciates Dzemaili and Leitner as footballers, but also as experienced managers who show others what it takes to be successful. However, the FCZ squad is not quite as young as the champion teams in Zurich in 2006 and Borussia Dortmund in 2012.
Maybe on a farewell tour
Whether Leitner and Dzemaili will also be involved with FCZ next season is an open question, the contracts are expiring. They face tough competition in midfield, others like Ousmane Doumbia and Antonio Marchesano are seeded. Leitner is also ailing again, he lacks the rhythm, as he says himself, he doesn’t waste any thoughts on the future after this season. At 29, however, he still has some interesting years ahead of him as a footballer.
Dzemaili, on the other hand, could immediately shape FCZ’s appearances again. But how long? His son lives in Verona, it’s difficult, he would like to spend more time with him. Last summer he thought that 2022 would definitely be the end of it, now he wants to wait and see for the next few weeks. As a footballer he has experienced everything he could wish for.
The 35-year-old has long been thinking about the time after his active career. Thus, Dzemaili completed a correspondence course in sports management. He can imagine staying in the business later as a sports director, player advisor or in another function – but certainly not as a coach.
And then Blerim Dzemaili says almost romantic sentences that you could not have imagined a few months ago: “I left the FCZ in 2007 with a championship title. It would be like a fairy tale if I could end my career at FCZ fifteen years later with a championship title.”