Do new brooms sweep better?: Doubts about the effect of a coaching change

Not much information is coming out about the current state of mind of Basel’s President David Degen. But that is not necessary, because the downward trend at FCB has been clear for weeks. Timo Schultz’s divorce at the end of September should not have come as a surprise to anyone after the miserable start to the season. And after an October with zero points and not a single goal in four games, there was no alternative to firing Heiko Vogel.

Ajax is also picking up a new broom

It might be a bit premature to claim that the trend has been broken after Basel’s 1-0 win in the cup against third division Kriens yesterday. Because in the coming weeks the focus of the new coach Fabio Celestini can only be on the Super League and the relegation battle there. But a little tailwind after the first competition victory since mid-September can’t hurt.

Another traditional club has been waiting for a sense of success since August. Ajax Amsterdam has not won ten times in a row on the national and international stage, is historically poor at last in the Eredivisie and has therefore: of course changed the coach. The newcomer, ex-Ajax professional John van ‘t Schip, can provide further proof in his debut against Volendam tonight that new brooms always sweep well in the coaching world.

The statistics are not clear on this point. There are studies that show that new coaches do not score more points on average in the long term than their predecessors, and they also claim to have at least a short-term effect. A recent study by sports scientists at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern shows that in most cases of coaching changes there is a spontaneous improvement in performance, which according to statistical studies can sometimes last for several weeks.

In Lyon the new broom swept just like the old one

One person who does not seem to care about such calculations is former Sion coach Fabio Grosso. The 46-year-old Italian took over French top club Olympique Lyon in mid-September. The former series champion (seven titles between 2002 and 2008) dismissed coach Laurent Blanc after a weak start to the season at the bottom of the table and is no better off with Grosso five games later.

That in turn could interest Union Berlin. Because the “Irons” are desperately looking for reasons not to fire Urs Fischer, their long-time successful coach. Since the results of recent weeks do not make good arguments – the East Berlin cult club lost all their last eleven games – examples of completely ineffective coaching changes are a welcome confirmation.

And in general: to interrogate a coach who, in the five years he worked at Union, achieved the milestones of promotion in 2019, confident relegation in 2020, reaching the Conference League in 2021, qualifying for the group stage of the Europa League in 2022 and entry into the Olympus called Champions League in 2023. At FC Basel, in any case, they still think back with horror to that day in the summer of 2017 when they said goodbye to Fischer after two years with two championship titles and one cup victory .

But when everything is no longer useful, perhaps a look at England can help. The bottom team in the Premier League there, Sheffield United, are currently bottom of the league in Europe with one point from ten games. No other club does worse in an elite competition. And yet coach Paul Heckingbottom is still firmly in the saddle. But hey, anyone who combines “crap” (heck) and “down” (bottom) in their name can probably keep losing forever.

For everyone else: This fall will pass and the chance that you will be able to keep your job will increase again.