ThoseChampions League
An already decisive recovery for Servette and Thomas Häberli
The garnets flew on Monday morning for Plzen, match this Tuesday evening (7 p.m.). Big issues at all levels: we dissect.
Timo Cognat will find the players of Plzen, a club that Servette had crossed in March 2024, in the round of 16 of the Conference League. After two 0-0, the garnet had cracked on penalties.
Basten melt / logoophoto
- Servette is in Plzen for the first leg of the second qualifying round of the Champions League. Kick -off this Tuesday at 7 p.m.
- Behind this meeting many questions: the sporting issue, the financial issue, the quality of the contingent, the need to establish the last strategic guidelines of the club and to launch its season well.
- It is the second season of Thomas Häberli at the head of Servette: what expectations, what orientations?
You should be able to keep the meaning of the measure and, without trivializing, put things into perspective. The first match of the Servette FC season, this shock Tuesday evening in Plzen, is of course important: the second round of qualifying at the Champions League carries in him the Garnet hopes of a European fall, if Servette eliminates the Czechs. In absolute terms, a chance to grasp, in reality, others that will follow in case of failure. But beyond this double confrontation and its outcome, something else takes shape in hollow for garnet.
We can take this meeting for what it is: perhaps a revenge of spring 2024 and This cruel elimination in the round of 16 of the Europa Leaguebut above all a first leg, no more, no less. Except disaster, it is in the return match next Wednesday at the Geneva stadium, that everything will decide. But behind this Plzen-Servette, a forest of questions. We go around it.
The need for legitimacy
If the results obtained say sports health, they have been taking shape incessant backwards, without guidelines for two years.
Reminder: Alain Geiger was dismissed from the bench in the summer of 2023 while he finished second in the ranking. René Weiler succeeds him, but after a leading European course and a Swiss cup won after twenty-three years of scarcity, he no longer wants to be a coach, for lack of adequate governance in his eyes.
Servette then decides to give him the position of unique sports director, precisely for these governance concerns. But after a season, it is already divorce, and Servette considers that a single sports director is no longer the right solution (as had already been the case with Philippe Senderos, ousted from this position in 2023).
SO? So returns of Gérard Bonneau (sportingly, the gray eminence of garnet from 2018 to 2021) and Alain Geiger within a sports commission.
Gérard Bonneau drew the framework of Servette FC from 2018 to 2021. He is back in a sports commission again set up.
Basten melt / logoophoto
It is an understatement to say that Servette needs much more stable governance, able to set a clear line. By runoff, after all these back and forth, the club needs to establish its new orientations with results. As quickly as possible.
Launch the season to reassure yourself
The need for legitimacy also applies to the team. As such, Plzen is a life -size test with, between the first leg and the return match, a trip to YB for the first day in Super League. Big recovery program, therefore.
The departures of To torture And de Crivelli leave a big void in front. MRAZ and JALLOW (who received his work permit and who can play this Tuesday evening) must fill it. Especially since the Grenat house estimated that the purchase option for the promising and efficient Alioune Ndoye was too high.
Tsunemoto was sold in Basel (1.8 million according to our information), it is also one less part behind and the looks turn to Magnin and Srdanovic to replace it, two young garnet. Bronn came to strengthen the central axis, but Von Moos has just been loaned to Lucerne with option to buy.
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The usual executives are still there, from money to rust, via Cognat, Stevanovic, Severin or Antunes, with one more year. Is the servette of this season stronger or less strong than last season? This is the whole question. Intrinsically, we would be tempted to say that he was weakened, but in any case, we must raise the question as quickly as possible. In this regard, the recovery is decisive for the confidence capital of the group.
“We have lost three executives who counted enormously (nlr: kutesa, crivelli and tsunnemoto)notes Jérémy Frick, the captain. Those who arrived, by definition, need to adapt to Servette FC, which was not the case for the three executives. I can’t say that Servette is stronger this season, no. But we will have to be efficient from the start. Because with twice Plzen and YB in the middle, it is a recovery at 2,000 km/h. We will be immediately in the bath. “
And you will have to know how to swim.
European qualification: user manual
The data is clear: Servette is not guaranteed for the moment to play a European league phase this fall. To achieve this, he must eliminate one of the next three teams he will face. The first opportunity is Plzen.
If Servette eliminates the Czechs, he will be paid back to the Europa League League this fall (while continuing in the direction of the Champions League, in the third qualifying round, before a dam, if success, to access the jackpot: strongly complicated).
If Servette is eliminated, he spins in Q3 of Europa League, success at this stage, and he is at worst in the League League League (while spinning in the Europa League dam).
If he still loses, he is tilted in the Conference League dam: a success there, and it is in the fall the league phase of this competition; An elimination, and it is over Europe this season.
Against Plzen, Häberli will have to compose without Douline. After his operation on the wrist, he now suffers from an infection: he will be absent for a month no doubt. Julian von Moos is no longer there. “Decision of the sports committee,” said the coach. And if Jallow has all the administrative green fires now, he could not train with the group only for a week.
Julian von Moos, a player who arrived under the Weiler era, will be loaned to Lucerne. His visit to Servette FC was punctuated by repeated injuries, as often in his career.
Basten melt / logoophoto
Is Servette ready for the shock against this plzen who has just stretched Pardubice 5-1 during the Czech recovery last Friday? “We will have to find the right balance in the face of a solid, homogeneous, physical team,” says Häberli.
Regarding the guards, one will play Europe and the cup, the other the championship. Answer this Tuesday evening in the Czech Republic, even if this choice has never enchanted the two gateways.
On the sidelines, a financial issue
The best chance in Europe is to eliminate Viktoria Plzen. Sportingly, the insurance in July of a first success. But financially, the certainty of several million in the club’s funds, with the UEFA windfall, as was the case during the 2023-2024 campaign, after eliminating Genk.
And Servette wants to growdevelop, he needs this money. According to what is rumored, part of its profits could increase its budget, the other part used to constitute a war treasure.
This involves profits, and a European campaign is the fastest path towards this goal.
Thomas Häberli, between shadow and light
It must be said as they are: no one would have considered one day to see Thomas Häberli as a trainer of the Servette FC. A year ago, however, he settled down in Geneva. He may have defended it, evoking a collegial decision, this was a decision by René Weiler as a sports director.
Häberli, it is little experience as a coach (ten months on the Lucerne bench in 2019) and three and a half years at the head of the modest Estonian selection. A surprise guest at Servette FC. His coming has often been related to a strategic choice: a man who would not make waves and would be under the orders of the single sports director, his relay on the bench to say everything.
There is a part of truth, but it is necessarily reductive. All weighed, in certain tactical choices or players, far from the natural orientations of Weiler, we were able to measure the leg of Häberli. For better and for worse.
The best is a Servette who managed to climb to first place in the ranking, last fall and this spring. The individual quality of garnet being there for many, much more than the collective organization which should have allowed them to maintain themselves.
The worst part is some of Häberli’s choices: his obstinacy with an adams not at the level (party since), Its management of the Kutesa case (If he is, as he claims, the only decision -maker of the Bench of the Benest Scorer this winter or his replacements so frequent around 60e), an excess of prudence where the garnet wanted more freedom, a clear line deficit.
In essence: the Servette de Geiger or Weiler, in different registers, scared the opponent, because capable of everything. This is much less the case with Thomas Häberli at the helm.
What Thomas Häberli this year? A more proactive version? The return, really, of pressing? Clearly expressed and worn game ideas? This is what Servette should tend ideally. This is what is expected of his coach this season. From the start.
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