Lausanne-Sport are fighting for a place in the top six in the Super League before the standings are separated. Coach Ludovic Magnin is doing a lot to achieve this - and is even sacrificing a great deal of passion.
21.04.2025, 05:00
21.04.2025, 08:02
SDA
When the playoff series between Lausanne HC and the ZSC Lions opens on Tuesday, Ludovic Magnin sits on the sofa at home and suffers. Not only because the Lausanne-Sport coach has to watch as LHC is left without a chance in the first act of the final for the Swiss championship title, but also because he would have loved to be in the stadium himself.
The defining defeat in Winterthur
But Magnin does not want to negatively influence the fate of his footballers. Not again. Not before his team's all-important match against Lugano on Easter Monday in the Super League championship round. After all, his team had delivered one of the weakest games of the season after he had made the pilgrimage to the Vaudoise Arena for ice hockey a few days earlier.
Magnin talks about Game 5 of the LHC's semi-final series against Fribourg-Gottéron, when the Lausanne team took the first step towards an impressive comeback. And of Lausanne-Sports' performance four days later, when the Vaud team lost 0:1 to bottom-placed Winterthur without allowing their opponents to score a single goal. "I don't want to risk that again," says Magnin. Despite his laughter, it is clear from his expression that he is serious. For years, he had been looking forward to Lausanne HC playing for the title. But there are priorities in life. "And the priority is that we still make it into the top six."
It's Thursday lunchtime when Ludovic Magnin talks about his superstitions in the belly of the Stade de la Tuilière. As a player, he says, he wasn't superstitious at all. "But as a coach, whew."
The 2025 slump
The episode suggests that Magnin and Lausanne-Sport are not about to play a normal Super League match. That this third clash of the season with FC Lugano on Easter Monday (4.30pm) is the one that will decide whether the Vaud club can still make it into the top six at the last minute and thus keep their chances of participating in the European Cup - or whether they will have to end the season in the relegation group with games of manageable sporting relevance, apart from the semi-final in the Swiss Cup against FC Basel (27.4).
"If someone had told us before the season that we would have a final on matchday 33 to reach the championship round, I would have signed that," says Magnin. He knows that his team has yet to really get going this calendar year. Only Sion (10) have picked up fewer points than Lausanne (14), who finished the preliminary round in third place, just one point behind leaders Lugano, and made the league sit up and take notice with seven wins from nine games before Christmas as the team with the strongest form.
At that time, one or two people on the northern shore of Lac Léman began to wonder whether Lausanne-Sport could even make it to the top this season, whether the trophy cabinet of the seven-time Swiss champions and nine-time cup winners could hold the golden championship trophy for the first time since 1965. But the dreams vanished as quickly as they had come. After departures such as that of Antoine Bernede to Hellas Verona, the team lost quality in the winter, states Magnin. And: "The opponents have adapted better to our game."
Of course, the injury to Alvyn Sanches, who suffered a cruciate ligament rupture during his first match with the Swiss national team in March, has also put a damper on the Lausannois' ambition to remain at the top. But Magnin still calls it an "outstanding" season that his team has had so far. Because he knows where the club is coming from.
The increased expectations
He himself has led Lausanne-Sport back from the Challenge League to the top flight. In recent years, says Magnin, Lausanne has mostly just been concerned with avoiding relegation or the barrage. "The fact that we now have the chance to finish in the top six in the last round shows the progress we've made in the last three years."
The 44 points and 50 goals scored are also key indicators of a successful season for the coach. "That doesn't happen often in Lausanne," he says. Accordingly, Magnin tries to take some of the sting out of the situation ahead of the showdown against Lugano by saying: "It will either be an incredible or a normal season for us. Seen over the whole season, we certainly deserve to be in the top six."
However, Magnin has not failed to notice that expectations have risen in the club's environment, with some fans firmly expecting Lausanne-Sport to finish in the top half of the table. Staying in the league is no longer enough to calm the Lausanne fans' souls. They had it in their own hands several times in recent weeks to secure their place in the championship round earlier, says Magnin. He is thinking of the 2-2 draw in Zurich, for example, when Lausanne had to concede an equalizer deep into stoppage time and thus missed out on perhaps decisively distancing their rivals, who now stand before them in the sun. "But now it's no use crying about it and looking at what's happening left and right. The most important thing is that we do our job."
Inspiration from the LHC
After the disappointment in Winterthur, Magnin prescribed a tough training session three times this week. The players should feel what it's like to suffer on the pitch, to run when their legs are already heavy. The coach, who celebrates his 46th birthday on Easter Sunday, hopes that this measure will enable his players to show this ability to suffer in serious matches.
Magnin, who is known for his sometimes unconventional motivational methods, will not reveal whether he will also use his bag of tricks in this regard. "You can't say every week that this is the game of the year," he says. "Otherwise it won't have any effect on the players when it really matters." However, field hockey fan Magnin explains how Lausanne's win in the final against Gottéron after trailing 3-1 impressed him. "Things like that inspire me," he says. So it's quite possible that the LHC field hockey team will soon be flickering across the screen in the footballers' dressing room. Superstition or not.
