Giorgio Contini has taken the helm at YB. He receives the call from Bern in the company of old companions from St.Gallen, of all places.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- In the football talk Heimspiel, Giorgio Contini talks about his first talks with YB.
- The former Nati assistant coach is having dinner with old FCSG companions in the ski hut when the Bernese officials get in touch.
- Contini tackles the challenge at the struggling champions without assistants. He currently trusts the old YB staff. However, he wants to leave future changes open.
Giorgio Contini is still a national team assistant when he spends a ski weekend in the mountains with his men's group on the last weekend before Christmas. Some of his former companions in St. Gallen are part of the group. With Pascal Thüler, Patrick Winkler and Sascha Müller, Contini surprisingly won the championship with FCSG in 2000 - of course there was a huge party afterwards, which many in Eastern Switzerland still talk about today.
Later, they all worked at the club, which brought them back together. They have been meeting up with other employees such as doctors and physios for an aperitif or dinner every few weeks for almost 20 years.
They were eating fondue bourguignonne together in a ski hut as part of a convivial men's group when Contini's cell phone rang. It's YB on the other end. The Bernese are looking for a replacement for interim coach Joel Magnin. So Contini has to make a secretive excuse to make a phone call outside the door. Contini leaves it open to his friends which club is next. In the end it was YB. "We bet on them," Thüler says with a grin on the football talk show Heimspiel.
Difficult time to turn everything upside down
For the struggling Bernese team, it's all about "making corrections", as Contini puts it. For Andreas Böni, editor-in-chief of blue Sport, a change of coach should not be underestimated. After all, you have to get to grips with internal practices and find people you can trust. His conclusion: "The coach at YB has a very difficult situation."
Contini's personality helps: "I'm a very open guy and I'm not afraid of closeness. That's how I approached people authentically. They know what they have in me. I've absorbed a lot and listened a lot."
Böni is surprised that Contini is taking on the challenge alone - the 51-year-old has not brought his own assistants with him at YB to swear the club to his line. "When I arrived, they were already making corrections in the staff, so it was already an ongoing process," says Contini.
He explains: "The timing was difficult. My start was on December 28 and on January 2 you already go to training camp. The mechanisms would have been much more complicated for the team with a new staff. I had to have information about the team immediately in order to react. I knew the existing assistants personally and knew that they deserved their chance," he explains.
Future changes to the staff not ruled out
He also gives them a lot of freedom, he wants to let the specialists work and see innovative and creative ideas from them, says Contini. "Over the last few weeks, things have settled into place, whether it's video analysis, individual training, the athletics section or the philosophy of how we want to work," he sums up.
"It was also something new for me to work with an existing staff," admits Contini. However, the current team constellation on the YB bench is not set in stone: "But I'm leaving myself open to the possibility that we might have to make adjustments at some point."
