Christian Fassnacht is back in Bern after one and a half years - later than the YB bosses wanted.
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- After a year and a half in England, Christian Fassnacht is back at YB. The 19-time national team player talks to blue Sport about his return to Bern.
- Fassnacht reveals that Young Boys made an effort to sign him early on. "I realized early on that they wanted me back, but it was still too early for me."
- However, he has no regrets about his adventure at Norwich. "I'm glad I did it," says Fassnacht.
He didn't fail - that's what Christian Fassnacht emphasizes about his one and a half years at Championship club Norwich. "When you look back on everything, you realize: I made 50 competitive appearances, scored my goals, we only just missed out on promotion in the play-offs. And I was a regular player for a long time," he says on blue Sport.
And he has also matured as a person, Fassnacht emphasizes. New language, new culture, new league. "I've felt what football abroad means and what it means to live abroad. I'm so glad I did that." The private happiness of the birth of his first child added to this.
But now he is where he is not only respected, but also extremely popular: in Bern, with the Young Boys, with whom he won five league titles and two cups and experienced great European nights.
Contact with Bern never broke off
A return that makes both sides happy. And was apparently a realistic prospect for Young Boys earlier than for Fassnacht himself. "I realized early on that they wanted me back, but it was still too early for me." Fassnacht wanted to assert himself at Norwich and fight for his place.
Nevertheless, he never lost contact with Bern - neither with sports delegate Christoph Spycher, nor with head of sport Steve von Bergen, nor with Albert Staudenmann, the Bernese head of communications, with whom he regularly spoke or wrote on WhatsApp. Friendships developed with them and others in Bern.
And the rapprochement between the black and yellow team intensified noticeably. Fassnacht sensed that the Bernese were at least indirectly increasing their efforts to win him back, "feeling their way towards a return", as he says - especially during the period when he was injured. "But first I wanted a clarifying conversation with the coach and wanted to know What is my situation?" So he contacted Johannes Thorup, his boss. The conversation with the sporting director reinforced the impression that things would be difficult at Norwich.
So plan B came into play - although Fassnacht would never talk about a plan B, an alternative or even an emergency solution in connection with YB. "There's nothing better than playing in Bern."
Doubts about destroying his monument? No!
Did he ever doubt whether the move was the right one - whether it would even jeopardize his monument? Fassnacht says firmly: "No, quite honestly, I never thought that." He followed the games, says Fassnacht. But why didn't things go well for Bern in the fall and why did they even slip into the bottom half of the table? Fassnacht says he had no idea. "There was no other thought in my head than: You'll be back and it will be like before."
The start was already impressive: After Fassnacht's return, YB won three times in a row - with 13 goals scored, two of them by Fassnacht, in the 6:1 win against Yverdon and the 5:1 win against Sion. Only on Saturday did the Bernese and Fassnacht fail, when they lost 0:1 in Winterthur and Fassnacht went off and was substituted after just over an hour.
But Fassnacht will not break down emotionally because of this - his experience abroad in Norwich has toughened him up too much.
