GC is not making any progress: no goals, no points, relegation battle. Can the change from sports director Bernt Haas to the German Stephan Schwarz bring improvement?
The situation for the record champions is becoming increasingly uncomfortable: Filipe de Carvalho (center) and Bradley Fink (right) after the 0-1 defeat against Lausanne in Letzigrund.
Christian Merz / Keystone
Was that the “impulse” that the GC leadership spoke about before Easter? The Grasshoppers lost 0-1 against Lausanne-Sport on Easter Monday. Over 13,000 spectators were in the stadium, many of them by invitation. But the GC performance probably didn’t entice anyone to come back as soon as possible. The first half was forgettable. The second 45 minutes were a little less bad. In the last ten games, GC only gained 6 points, and the gap to 10th place is already three points.
“I didn’t see anything in the first half of what I demand from my players: determination, attitude, dedication,” said the GC coach after a game that he “absolutely wanted to win.” It gives him hope that his team “didn’t go down”, only the goal was missing in the end. Bradley Fink missed his second big chance in stoppage time, and once again Bruno Berner’s team failed to score. The “impulse”? Not visible.
Gärtner and Schwarz, “friends for an eternity”
Last Wednesday, sports director Bernt Haas was sent away and paid off. The dismissal wasn’t a surprise, but the timing was. How is a new sports director supposed to give support and trust to an unsettled team? After “in-depth analysis” it was concluded that GC needed this “impulse” now, but also for planning the coming season. Stephan Schwarz is Haas’ successor.
Harald Gärtner, European director of the Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC), is the strong man at the Grasshoppers. On Thursday he sat in the media room on the campus in Niederhasli and explained the change, Schwarz took a seat at his side. The two have known each other “for ages”. Schwarz says that he is always “about having a good feeling towards the people” he works with. He reports on the video calls with President Stacy Johns and LAFC CEO Larry Freedman. “In the end, it was the overall constellation with LA Galaxy that convinced me to take this job,” says Schwarz.
LA Galaxy?
“LAFC,” Gärtner corrected with a smile, and of course you can brush aside a slip of the tongue with a grin and be lenient when names get mixed up. After all, Andy Möller said many years ago: “Milan or Madrid – the main thing is Italy!” In any case, Stuttgart, 1860 Munich, Hoffenheim and, until 2019, Augsburg are among the clubs for which Schwarz worked as a youth coach, scout and sports director. And now the Grasshopper Club Zurich.
The 53-year-old says he wants to “get used to the people, the city, the culture,” says he has to “take the country’s peculiarities into account” and “can’t impose anything in Switzerland that works in another country.” After his time in Augsburg, he “withdrew a little” and then worked as an intern in the USA and took on various mandates overseas, Schwarz reported.
The honeymoon with Los Angeles is over
He doesn’t know everything about Swiss football in detail, but he brought Diego Benaglio to Stuttgart and knows Stephan Lichtsteiner. The former captain of the national team played in Augsburg in the first Corona season. During GC’s 2019 relegation season, the Brazilian Caiuby was a loan player from Augsburg. That was long ago. It was the season after which GC disappeared into the Challenge League for two years and was taken over by the Chinese from the Fosun Group.
Perhaps even for a powerful organization like Los Angeles FC, a club takeover isn’t quite as easy as it might seem on paper. In the days after the takeover, the new GC President Stacy Johns told “NZZ am Sonntag”: “We want success, we are not here to lose money.” They will “optimize processes, identify errors, get the best out of employees, have lots of conversations in Zurich, try out a few things and find out what works.” Johns said this after the 2-1 win in the derby against FCZ, the new owners had come from California, it was a bit like a honeymoon. It’s over now.
During the winter break, three new players joined the Grasshoppers who have not yet proven themselves as reinforcements. Gärtner is said to have been in charge of the transfers of Abubakar, Batista Meier and Kameri. Apparently the owners in Los Angeles did not want to invest heavily, believing that the team had enough quality to avoid being in danger of relegation. It turned out differently. Now coach Berner is faced with the task of getting mentally unsettled players to fight the relegation battle. In addition, eleven contracts end at the end of the season, only captain Amir Abrashi was recently extended.
But it’s not just the first team that isn’t making progress. The position of managing director remains vacant, and there also seems to be something wrong in the youth department. After just 22 days, the experienced coach Fritz Schmid ended his commitment to look at the structures in the junior department and develop suggestions for the future. Schmid does not comment on the rumors that he encountered chaotic conditions.
The commitment of Fredy Bickel, who was GC sports director and managing director before the Chinese took over, also became known recently. Bickel was also brought in by Gärtner for the offspring until the end of the season. What his job is there doesn’t seem to be entirely clear. Maybe the new sports director Stephan Schwarz will find out. He is the “impulse” that GC is looking for these weeks.