YB sports director Spycher on failure in the Super League

It is quite normal that another club becomes Swiss champion again – but it is very surprising that YB is suddenly 20 points behind FC Zurich. Are you still amazed?

The problem is multifaceted. But I’m not surprised, because we always lived in reality, with the table in mind.

Apart from being in the Champions League, do you see anything positive about this season?

You can’t just ignore the fact that we have shown very good performances internationally. And there are also good individual developments. Recently we played several times with a very young central midfield, with Cheikh Niasse and Fabian Rieder, 22 and 20 years old. Another young player, Lewin Blum, came to the fore. There are positive points that cannot be read from the table. Also the way we deal with this failure.

What do you mean?

If successful, we were a unit and tried not to take off. And that’s how we went through the sporting crisis. We had stability and didn’t lose energy on sideshows. Of course we had critical arguments, both in the team and in management, but we didn’t report any of it to the public.

But the team couldn’t see that they were recovering. Why not?

It’s difficult to talk about the injury situation with so much behind because it seems like an excuse. But let’s put it this way: Of our top 20 players this season, only Vincent Sierro was never injured. In addition to these injuries, there was a change during the winter break with four departures.

Michel Aebischer, Silvan Hefti, Jean-Pierre Nsame and Christopher Martins left. Looking back, would you agree to all these transfers?

Every transfer has its story. For example Aebischer: Ultimately, it’s also about being credible to our players and our idea. It hurts when you lose a player like Aebischer. But if all the parameters are right, we usually agree to a transfer. And there was no question for us that we wanted to give Aebischer’s place to Fabian Rieder. When your own junior puts on as much pressure as Rieder does, you have to honor it. But it is also possible that the player does not immediately perform as well as the predecessor.

You speak of a complex problem. So do you see any other reasons?

Many of our players have not experienced a sporting bear market before – or not in a role that required them to be in the front row. We have players with an excellent mentality who have had serious injuries. But it’s different when you fall really deep because of an injury and gradually come back up. Now it was like this: you fall low at the weekend because you concede a goal in the 92nd minute – and you try to come back up and get the next hit, the next hit, the next hit. But we don’t feel like it’s just bad luck. We have to change one or the other. And we’re working on that.

What then?

There will be changes in the squad. We’re not going to send 20 players away and sign 20 players. We believe in the team and that the experiences from this season strengthen our players. There will be a natural positive development. Nevertheless, we want to add one or the other element of mentality.

The situation seems complex. Is it just a logical consequence that the club is changing coaches – and from the outside, next to nothing is happening? The statistics are even worse under Matteo Vanetta than under David Wagner.

The main reason we changed coaches was because we had the feeling that the energy was no longer there at 100 percent. We never said David Wagner was the sole culprit. We wanted to create a certain energy. I think we’re on the right track, but the results didn’t show it.

Are you looking for a new coach for next season?

We will take stock at the end of the season and then decide. We said that we support Matteo Vanetta and the coaching staff 100 percent and don’t want to bring things to a boil at the same time that damage concentration.

But statistically speaking, there is not much to be said for the continuation of the Vanetta solution.

The statistics are not satisfactory. But you also have to see that Matteo Vanetta took over the team when it was in a downward spiral.

So is there a central explanation for the summer of 2021 when YB signed David Wagner? If a series master lacks the energy after eight months of working together, it is obvious that the solution was not ideal.

In the Champions League qualifier, David Wagner brought in exactly what we expected: new stimulus points. In the qualifiers we defended ourselves against resistance with a lot of energy – that was very good. Then there was a development that was not positive.

Does this season show you how particularly good the situation was with coach Gerardo Seoane, who was champion from 2019 to 2021?

We always knew how well Gerry suited us. But we also knew it from Adi Hütter, the 2018 champion coach. And Adi Hütter’s example shows exactly how difficult this job is. Adi had a great time with us and then three great years in Frankfurt. Nevertheless, he was on the brink twice in Frankfurt. And this season it was unsatisfactory in Mönchengladbach. But it’s not possible that he was good with us and in Frankfurt – and now he’s bad. It’s about overall constellations that have to fit.

Do you learn from this that you need to listen to yourself more? Alexander Blessin was actually the YB candidate last summer. Do you tell yourself that you should have done everything you could to get this coach?

It’s amusing who should have been the preferred candidate. These speculations keep coming up. In David Wagner we had a coach that we were 100 percent convinced of. The coaching market is a complex market, there are not always the simplest solutions. We were convinced that Wagner was the right man.

Matteo Vanetta is close to you. When you brought him to the club in 2018, you knew that you were also on the same human wavelength. It would be difficult for you to make him an assistant again or to send him away.

But that’s part of the business. This situation also exists with players. In the summer of 2017 we made a big change. Let’s take Michael Frey from that time: I’ve known him since he was a little boy. He ran back and forth behind the goal when I played at FC Münsingen in the 1990s. Later he came into the first team at YB and I was like a big brother to him. Logically, I had a close relationship with him. But in the summer of 2017 it no longer fit. A factual analysis led to this conclusion. We must not be guided by emotions.

A lot worked out in the summer of 2017: YB earned a lot of money and invested well. For this summer you promise changes, more mentality. Do you see clearly what needs to be done this time?

We are convinced that we are going in a direction that meets our requirements.

You have to lead the club out of a situation where it’s 20 points behind FCZ – you’ve never had such a difficult task as head of sport.

I don’t experience it that way at all. I had the first difficult moment when we lost in the Cup against Winterthur in March 2017 and many people called for Adi Hütter to be released. And even if we were successful, we had many difficult moments that stayed internal. I didn’t float on a pink cloud for four years. We always worked through problems as a team – now it’s just that the results don’t detract from it.

You have received a great deal of honor over the past four years. Now someone suddenly says: “Even Christoph Spycher doesn’t walk on water.” To what extent are you now questioning yourself?

One or the other player said to me in previous seasons: “Have a good laugh.” It’s difficult to tell the players that this isn’t good and this and that – and in the end . . .

. . . YB is the champion with a 31-point lead, just like in 2021.

I agree. It’s just a fact: Success conceals certain things. It’s no problem for me to deal with it. I learned it early on as a player at FC Luzern when we were fifth in a no-name group in the 1999/2000 season. Everyone said we were the best and the greatest, in Lucerne everyone patted us on the back. And the next season we just barely stayed in the league. Since then I’ve known that you’re extremely peppered in football. In any case, I never had the feeling that I could walk on water – otherwise I would no longer be in this room today, but would have gone under.

When YB succeeds, the francophone faction raves about how much they invigorate the team and themselves, all wonderful. And if there is no success, it is said that this grouping is perhaps too large, the French-speaking players are not working enough defensively. Does it also show how much one is peppered back and forth?

Yes. In the event of success, our strong relationship in the francophone part of Switzerland and beyond is the reason for the championship title. And if we don’t succeed, it means it doesn’t fit.

Is one or the other correct?

Neither nor. It’s just a superficial observation. At the end of the day, we need a team that’s ready to go through thick and thin. And this team has worked through various problems internally.

Your contract as YB sports director expires at the end of 2022, the extension has not yet been communicated. But the longer it takes, the more likely you are to stay at YB – because you rarely inform the club of your departure at the last moment.

There has been quite a bit to do in the past few weeks. I told the Board of Directors that I would like to help shape the future of YB. When the worst is over, we will find the moment to put this commitment on paper.

What else is there to settle?

In principle there is clarity.

And what goes beyond the basics? Does the team around you, in the sporting leadership, have to get bigger? Is it about a redesign of your role or about desired appointments on the board of directors?

We have a clear plan of how we want to align YB for the future.

Is there a larger litter to be expected that will cause a surprise?

I don’t think anything in football surprises you.