The flying parade forecast published by blue Sport before the start of each season may delight and annoy readers in equal measure. But what good is it anyway?
A look back at our forecast: risk level 5 means that the coach is highly unlikely to survive the season. Danger level 1 is almost a job guarantee.
This was our pre-season flight parade forecast
- Danger level 5: Didier Tholot (Sion)
- Danger level 4: Marco Schällibaum (GC), Thomas Häberli (Servette), Mario Frick (Lucerne), Enrico Maassen (St.Gallen), Ognjen Zaric (Winterthur).
- Danger level 3: Ricardo Moniz (FCZ), Alessandro Mangiarratti (Yverdon), Fabio Celestini (Basel), Ludovic Magnin (Lausanne)
- Danger level 2: Mattia Croci-Torti (Lugano), Patrick Rahmen (YB).
- Danger level 1: blue Sport did not give any job guarantees this year.
Four teams started the season with new coaches: Servette (Thomas Häberli), St. Gallen (Enrico Maassen), YB (Patrick Rahmen) and Winterthur (Ognjen Zaric). We suspected that not all of them had come to stay. That Zaric, following the laws of football, could become the victim of a dismissal, blue Sport has smelled the rat.
Misjudgements by Rahmen and Tholot
At YB, on the other hand, we were caught on the wrong foot. We almost put Patrick Rahmen under species protection. "Nothing speaks against him doing a great job at YB," said the scribbler. But then the season began and the champions just couldn't get going. Although the Bernese almost sensationally qualified for the Champions League, the joy soon faded. Because in the top flight, YB got hit on the roof time after time and then at the weekend, demoralized and exhausted from international business, did not bring the necessary horsepower to the pitch to perform in the league.
Under interim coach Joël Magnin, the team has stabilized of late, but that is no longer helping the cause. After the winter break, Giorgio Contini will be on the Bernese sidelines to breathe new life into the players. We dare to make a modest prediction: Contini will lead YB into the top six, but we'd better not use the M-word (yet).
We saw the greatest danger of being sacked with Sion coach Didier Tholot. Why? Simply because he is the coach of Sion and is subject to the whims of the president. But Christian Constantin has, as he himself answered in the affirmative in an interview, become a little mellow with age. Who would have thought that he would undergo such a maturing process at the age of 67?
Fitting predictions for Croci-Torti and Schällibaum
In the case of Mattia Croci-Torti, we were right to regard him as hardly at risk. At least we hit the mark here. Lugano lead the table before the winter break, albeit by the narrowest of margins. We also suspected that GC coach Marco Schällibaum would soon have to take the fall.
The season is not over yet ...
As already mentioned, Thomas Häberli, Didier Tholot and Enrico Maassen came off too badly in our aerial parade prediction. We also ran Mario Frick offside and gave him too little credit.
However, we must not forget that a lot can still happen between now and the end of the season and that we will end up in a better position than many a coach who has been shafted. Because one thing is clear: the club bosses will once again lose their nerve in the new year.
