A few months ago, when there was still a gap between aspiration and reality at FC Zurich, big enough to accommodate the whole club, the fans tried gallows humor. At the last game of the 2020/21 season, they put up a banner in the stadium that read: “We congratulate the top club on their third league appearance in a row.” The FCZ, twelve-time Swiss champions, managed to stay up in the league with some difficulty.
Today at FC Zurich, reality has overtaken expectations. Before the season, the decision-makers sat together around President Ancillo Canepa, they planned a change in personnel and were looking for a coach, also in Germany. The coach is now called André Breitenreiter, 48, and at FCZ they will not have regretted this decision. A season without relegation problems, that was the plan. It turned out differently.
FC Zurich last lost a league game in September, they lead the table after 22 of 36 matchdays with 50 points and are ten points ahead of FC Basel and the Young Boys from Bern. On Sunday (February 27th, 2022), FCZ welcomes the pursuers from Basel to the top game. “Basel must win”says Breitenreiter in an interview with the sports show: “We want to win.” The sports show on Sunday shows a summary of the game.
In the beginning there was a gut feeling
The former series champion Basel is now an outsider, the almost relegated FC Zurich favorite – that’s the situation in Swiss football. What, please, one wonders, did Breitenreiter do with this club and its players?
It all started with Breitenreiter and FC Zurich in early summer 2021 with a video conversation and an idea. He is, says Breitenreiter, a person who relies on his gut feeling. He had previously been unemployed for two and a half years, also for personal reasons, which is important to Breitenreiter. But when it came to the FCZ, he immediately felt that “that fits perfectly”. gut feeling.
He formed a team there that plays 3-4-1-2 respectable football, without frills, always straight. A team that scores a lot of goals but concedes very few. Football, says Breitenreiter, has to be attractive, and that’s what he stands for as a coach: “We have clear procedures and the guys implement them very well.”
An attacker who suddenly scores goals
The development can be understood using the example of the attacker Assan Ceesay, 27. Last season, Ceesay only managed two goals in 33 league games, but this season he has developed into a goalscorer: 20 appearances, 13 goals. In Switzerland, they quickly spoke of Breitenreiter as someone who makes players better. He will be happy to hear that.
When Breitereiter was introduced as coach in June, he said he had already proven he could make players better. He recalled his time at FC Schalke 04, where he was seen as a promoter of talents like Leroy Sané and Leon Goretzka. Schalke was Breitenreiter’s biggest club, he stayed a year, led the club to the Europa League and had to leave in the summer of 2016. Christian Heidel, who succeeded Horst Heldt as head of sport, had other plans.
Table leaders in the Bundesliga with SC Paderborn
Before that, Breitenreiter had already been promoted to the Bundesliga with two clubs, SC Paderborn and Hannover 96. In Paderborn he had turned an average second division club into an above-average team that played courageously even after promotion and was even the league leader for a short time.
Peter Stöger, then coach of 1. FC Köln, once said: “Everyone knows how they play, but no one knows what to do about it.” Paderborn was relegated anyway, but had won a lot of sympathy as a brave outsider.
The trainer Breitenreiter – a do-it-yourselfer
Breitenreiter’s first coaching position was TSV Havelse, a club from the small town of Garbsen near Hanover. He formed a team that played for promotion to the 3rd division and knocked out 1. FC Nürnberg in the DFB Cup on a hot summer’s day in 2012. In Garbsen they remember it to this day.
Matthias Limbach was already working for TSV Havelse back then, today he is the sporting director of the club, which now plays in the 3rd division. The players, says Limbach, believed in Breitenreiter and his idea of football and followed him unconditionally. Limbach says: “Breitreiter is a do-gooder.”
“No one has ever talked about the title”
The “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” recently published a story about FCZ, which also dealt with a possible championship title. President Canepa, the newspaper writes, did not like it at all and threatened to beat everyone who would associate the club with the title. It read like a joke, probably it was one. They don’t like to talk about the championship there that much.
André Breitenreiter is at least willing to talk about goals. He would like to hear the Champions League anthem as a coach, “preferably with FC Zurich”. The only goal he doesn’t want to proclaim is the championship, where Breitenreiter is on course with his superior. He says: “No one has ever talked about the title.”