class=”sc-29f61514-0 icZBHN”>
Blick: Bernhard Heusler, you were already an FCB fan when you joined the club. First as a lawyer, later as president.
Bernhard Heusler: Yes. You soon notice that the ideas you have about the personalities on the field do not necessarily correspond to the impressions you get when you are responsible for them as an employee in the office, on the training field or during lunch.
Can you remain a fan in this role?
(Immediately.) No. When you work for the club every day, you automatically get a completely different approach. I now feel that this fan feeling is slowly coming back after six years.
Who did you have a completely different image of from the outside?
As my favorite player, Hakan Yakin seemed extremely confident, dominant and almost brutal in the stadium. In personal contact I quickly noticed what an incredibly sensitive, reserved, almost shy person he is off the field, but also with a very good sense of humor. His amiable character could not match the Hakan who was on the field on Sunday afternoon and decided the hard-fought matches for his team.
In 2017 you stepped down as head of FCB and have now written a book about leadership. What have you learned from players like Matias Delgado, who have mentored you throughout your tenure?
Matias came with me in 2003, then left for a while and then played two or three games after I left. He even outlived me at FCB! (Laughs.) Its meaning is difficult to put into words, we are still in touch to this day. He recently took me to a café in Hofstetten-Flüh in the canton of Solothurn.
What happened there?
There he led me into a side room, full of FCB memorabilia, signed jerseys on the walls, the whole programme. And then he explained to me that the team always met here, ate together and celebrated – and we at the club management knew nothing about it! Delgado and the other key players had created a sanctuary for the team where they could be among each other and sometimes clarify things. As a boss you cannot dictate that from above. You have to be lucky with leading players like Delgado, Marco Streller, Beni Huggel, Alex Frei or Walter Samuel. The list is not exhaustive! As president, you could simply dictate that someone from Basel, a Swiss, a Latin American and someone else should always sit together at the table. That makes no sense, I am convinced of that. But when you enter the dressing room and see Marco Streller showing young Mo Salah videos of the championship celebrations on his laptop, you know that you are only needed secondarily for integration and identification.
At FCB you were known for preferring to make the decision a year early when in doubt and say goodbye to deserving players or coaches.
Real? But the subject is actually a challenge for those responsible: you can have a personality in the wardrobe who has achieved a lot. If she can no longer contribute anything decisively on the field, her teammates will no longer accept her as a leader. That is nature, we humans work as a pack in a high performance team. Anticipating this replacement process in a timely manner is the thankless task of managers. So against our own emotions, at some point we had to agree to an end to Frei and Huggel. It was extremely painful, extremely difficult because we owed so much to these players. They had done an incredible amount for the whole business, from which we in management benefited. In a leadership position you constantly have to make decisions that hurt people. Because you are responsible for the big picture, for the entire club.
What was your most difficult breakup?
The release of Heiko Vogel was difficult, also because of the violent reactions from outside. We, and for the first time personally, were confronted with extreme hostility.
Because Vogel was so popular?
Yes, and objectively speaking he was successful too. We had a hard discussion internally and agreed on this decision, knowing that it would not be met with applause. The decision came early and caught many people off guard. But you shouldn’t wait too long either. If you wait for a change to be dictated to you by the media, you can be sure you’ve waited four or five games too long.
How do you know this is the right time?
Frankly, no one knows. The bad thing is that you make decisions in complete uncertainty. You don’t know how it will work in the future. It helps if you have a group of people around you who make open and honest decisions and represent them together to the outside world. We had that then. Our luck was that Murat Yakin, who succeeded Vogel as coach, started winning after two defeats at the beginning of his term. Then the indignant and accusatory reactions disappear. When it comes to unpopular decisions, sporting success acts as a protective shield for leadership.
That brings us to the present. Heiko Vogel is again a coach at FCB, the club is last. Are you bothered?
Naturally. But please understand that I will not comment on current issues at FCB because I cannot. I’m just not close enough for that. I am a spectator and increasingly a fan.
FCB president David Degen still played under you. Does he come to you for advice?
When he calls or writes me, I like to listen to him and give my independent opinion. David, like his twin brother Philipp, has always been close to my heart. I have a family bias: as a little boy, my son went to the stadium wearing David’s number 22 jersey. That connects.
Doesn’t it sometimes tickle you to intervene again?
No. Maybe I’ve been responsible for that for too long. It’s more like I almost feel sorry for how everything that could go wrong at FCB feels like it’s going wrong right now. In my day we would sometimes sit in the stands and rub our eyes and hardly believe our luck. In his last match against FCZ, Alex Frei dropped a free kick, suffered from the shot and left the field to a standing ovation from the crowd – as if it had been directed by a storybook author. Now and then I have the thought: “Does this have to happen now?” At the moment, the management at FCB has no flair for happy endings, such as in the semi-final of the Conference League against Fiorentina.
What has been your greatest joy as club president?
Steinhöfer’s shot under the crossbar on his own goal against Manchester United (laughs). If you want to be completely honest: in 2010, in the first season under Thorsten Fink, we caught up with YB by 13 points and became champions. That started this whole positive spiral. Athletically, but also financially. Otherwise we would have suffered another loss in 2010. For the first time we had primary external responsibility. We did not want to simply rely on then-President Gigi Oeri to cover a deficit that we and I had created. If the 2009/2010 season and subsequent Champions League qualification had not been successful, I probably would not have become president a good year later.
After Steinhöfer hit the crossbar, Heiko Vogel made the statement that will never be forgotten in Football Basel: “On good days he does that.” Later, when Vogel left, you also came up with a phrase that still rings every new coach’s ears to this day.
(Sigh). The one with the shops on Freie Strasse?
Yes. Do you regret this?
Zero! I wanted to say that it is desirable that the leaders of the club be present in the city. I believe that the supporters’ identification and tolerance is greater when they meet outside the stadium. This is especially important in modern football. It is wrong to feel that identification only comes with success. Even when success is important. The statement was not a joke against Vogel.
Would you rather?
I wanted to show why we believed at the time that Murat Yakin was the right person for the situation. He is and remains a child of this region. He knows the city and culture of Basel inside and out. When changing coaches, you should always focus on the new in communication and, if possible, ignore questions about the reasons for the separation. Even if you get beaten for it.
Former FCB patron Gigi Oeri publicly violently attacked you a few months ago. Did that hurt you?
Voila! The question is formulated incorrectly. From the moment I joined FCB in 2003 until the transfer of business operations in 2009, Ms. Oeri was much more than “just” a patron. She was responsible for the sporting and economic management of the club at the highest level. I have personally experienced the effort this entails and therefore I can understand if she is concerned about her role being reduced to that of a financier. Perhaps as a successor I was sometimes not sensitive enough when such shortenings came up. Gigi Oeri and I have given our best to this club, both individually and together as a well-functioning team. I am very grateful to her for the trust she places in me. That’s what I want to remember.
|
team
|
SP
|
T.D
|
PT
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
 FC Zurich
|
11
|
13
|
23
|
|
|
2
|
 BSC Young Boys
|
10
|
11
|
21
|
|
|
3
|
 FC St. Gallen
|
12
|
7
|
21
|
|
|
4
|
 FC Lucerne
|
11
|
0
|
18
|
|
|
5
|
 FC Winterthur
|
12
|
-1
|
16
|
|
|
6
|
 Napkin FC
|
11
|
-1
|
16
|
|
|
7
|
 Yverdon Sports FC
|
12
|
-5
|
16
|
|
|
8th
|
 FC Lugano
|
10
|
2
|
15
|
|
|
9
|
 Grasshopper Club Zurich
|
12
|
-4
|
11
|
|
|
10
|
 FC Lausanne Sport
|
11
|
-5
|
9
|
|
|
11
|
 FC Stade Lausanne Ouchy
|
10
|
-8th
|
9
|
|
|
12
|
 FC Basel
|
10
|
-9
|
5
|
Source : Blick
I’m Emma Jack, a news website author at 24 News Reporters. I have been in the industry for over five years and it has been an incredible journey so far. I specialize in sports reporting and am highly knowledgeable about the latest trends and developments in this field.
