FC Basel, Ajax Amsterdam, Olympique Lyon: three top international football clubs are in serious trouble this season. The reasons.
Heiko Vogel was also unsuccessful. After four defeats in a row, the Swiss football club FC Basel parted ways with its coach. Vogel took over the post from his German colleague Timo Schultz just a month ago.
Knocked off Bottom of the table
FCB is bottom of the Super league table with just one win from eleven games League. From the penultimate, promoted team FC Stade Lausanne Ouchy, the club is already separated by five points. Under Vogel, the team had not managed a single goal in four games. His successor will be Fabio Celestini, who will face on Sunday (November 5th, 2023). Yverdon Sports will sit on the bench for the first time.
The great FC Basel was once the football flagship of Switzerland. The club became champions 20 times and was a regular guest in the Champions League and is therefore something like the FC Bayern Munich of the Swiss Confederation. The last title win to date was in 2017, and since then it has been especially the Young boys Bern overtook the former series champions.
turning point in 2017
The sporting decline began in 2017. At that time, two long-standing pillars, President Bernhard Heusler and sports director Georg Heitz, left the club. However, their footsteps proved to be too big for the new president Bernhard Burgener and the new sports director Marco Streller. For many years, Basel had discovered talents or developed them in their own youth, shaping them into stars in order to then sell them for a lot of money – for example Xherdan Shaqiri, Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Salah or Aleksandar Dragovic.
Despite the many departures, the creators always managed to send a powerful team onto the pitch. But under Streller and Burgener, the additions increasingly turned out to be flops, success was not forthcoming, and there were power struggles and disagreements. Streller left Blue-Red again in 2019, and Burgener resigned two years later.
A back and forth with Vogel
David Degen has been president since 2021, but things aren’t going any better under the ex-professional either. The squad is considered to be unbalanced, there are no identifying figures, and hardly any young players make it to the top. The club only sees the additions as a stepping stone, but they are far from having the stature of Salah.
What’s happening in Basel sometimes looks quite chaotic. An example: In January 2023, Heiko Vogel joined the club as sports director. A good two months later, after parting ways with coach Alexander Frei, he became interim coach and reached the semi-finals with FCB Conference League one. Because he actually wanted to be a sports director and not a coach, he went back to his old position at the start of the current season, brought in Timo Schultz as coach – and then had to replace him as coach again until he was fired himself.
Ajax historically bad
The crisis-ridden Dutch record champions Ajax Amsterdam also have a new coach. John van’t Schip is supposed to lead the traditional club out of the crisis. Ajax had previously parted ways with Maurice Steijn after the worst start to the season in the club’s history. During that time, Ajax only managed one win, only got five points and recently suffered five defeats in a row.
Disappointment at Ajax Amsterdam
For the first time in the club’s history, Ajax slipped to last place Eredivisie. Van’t Schip is the traditional club’s fourth head coach within a year, after Alfred Schreuder, John Heitinga and Steijn. Fear runs rampant in the association of legends like Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten and Dennis Bergkamp. As if Bayern Munich were playing against relegation in the Bundesliga. Inconceivably.
At least van’t Schip was able to stop the red and whites’ unbridled fall. He celebrated his debut on Thursday (November 2nd, 2023) in the catch-up game against FC Volendam a 2-0 win. Ajax climbed to 15th place in the table and will face SC on Sunday Heerenveen.
Overmars’ misconduct leads to misery
Similar to Basel, the problems lie deeper. Before Steijn, sports director Sven Mislintat had to leave after a turbulent transfer phase, supervisory board chairman Pier Eringa resigned, and former Bundesliga professional Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is leaving because of one burnout-Illness will suspend his position as technical manager.
The historic crisis began at the beginning of 2022. At that time, sports director Marc Overmars had to leave after sending “inappropriate messages” to employees. The then coach Erik Ten Haag later moved to Manchester Unitedtogether they were the architects of the young team that reached the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2019.
Without Overmars and ten Haag not much went together in the previous season, now everything is even worse. Many blame Mislintat, who brought in the overwhelmed Steijn in the summer and rebuilt the team. Players left for a good 150 million, others came for around 110 million. “Wasted money”said ex-Ajax professional Rafael van der Vaart: “What I see is a shitty team with shitty players.”
Even under Grosso there was no turnaround in Lyon
Crisis club number three is Olympique Lyon. No win yet, bottom of the table – that’s the record of the former series champion, who won the French title seven times in a row between 2002 and 2008 Ligue 1 celebrated – a record in France to this day. Even under the rule of Paris Saint Germain Lyon was usually able to stay at least among the best four teams in the league, but then they suddenly found themselves in midfield under coach Peter Bosz.
Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette
In October 2022, Laurent Blanc was hired as coach. The former French national coach was supposed to lead Lyon back up. But this season he got off to a miserable start and was released in September 2023.
His successor is Fabio Grosso, but he is also unlucky. Aside from the standings, the Italian also has other worries at the moment. Before the game at Olympique Marseilles Stones were thrown at the Lyon team bus and Grosso was hit in the head and injured. It is not yet clear whether the Italian world champion from 2006 can take part in the basement duel against FC Metz on Sunday.
Trouble because of the investor
In December 2022, the club proudly announced the entry of a US investor. The “Eagle Football Holding” by John Textor holds 77.5 percent of all Olympique shares. The billionaire American has bought stakes in soccer clubs around the world – including Brazil’s Botafogo, Premier League-Club Crystal Palace and Molenbeek from Belgium.
The deal has so far been ineffective and is slowly but surely proving to be a disaster for OL. This is mainly because the club is in trouble with French football’s financial regulator. Because of alleged irregularities in Textor’s budget planning, they are now taking a closer look at transfers.
Before the current season, Lyon took in around 107 million euros on the transfer market, but only spent around 20 million on new staff. Notable departures such as Bradley Barcola (Paris Saint-Germain), central defender Castello Lukeba (RB Leipzig) and midfielder Romain Faivre (AFC Bournemouth) were not replaced.