Bankruptcies, bad luck and accidents: Inka Grings’ horror year as national coach

It was clear that with the rather strict and determined Inka Grings (45) following her predecessor Nils Nielsen (52), everything would be different in the national women’s team from January. But just like that? Grings’ year in office at the SFV will go down in history as a memorable series of bankruptcies, bad luck and accidents.

Bankruptcies? They were there alone against world champion Spain in a trio. Switzerland was wiped out 1:5, 0:5 and 1:7. Grings also leaves Switzerland with disastrous consequences. Only one win from 14 games, it was the 2-0 in the opening match of the World Cup against the Philippines. There were seven draws – but often against opponents who could easily be defeated with the Swiss claim: Poland, China, Zambia, Morocco.

Tactics and formations raised questions

Switzerland’s failure to win since the summer was also due to their unprecedented attacking weakness. At the World Cup in New Zealand, the national team won the group, but with two 0-0 draws and in the victory against the Philippines with only one goal from the match. The tactical ideas that Grings used to make it easier for her team to score goals often remained a mystery this year, with few bright spots. Even after the World Cup, rumors circulated that there was quite a bit of resistance within the team to Grings’ substitutions and formations.

Bad luck? In her year of horror, Grings also seemed to be haunted by Murphy’s Law. For example, the mental break plus the injury break of captain Lia Wälti (30) came at an inopportune time. Then the cruciate ligament tear of Iman Beney (17), which Grings wanted to take to the World Cup as a discovery during the preparation. In fact, it was bad luck that due to the new Nations League, the national team only had to compete against absolute top opponents such as Spain, Sweden and Italy all autumn and the end of the negative series was only out of reach because of the game plan.

Grings could do nothing about the MeToo case

The basic constellation that Grings had to address the generational change in the team that was missed under Nielsen due to the home championship in 2025 was also not particularly promising. A thankless job because after Nielsen’s feel-good oasis she focused on performance and was therefore forced to offend.

The mysterious MeToo case on the way home from the World Cup was also unfortunate for Grings. An SFV employee allegedly grabbed a national team player by the buttocks, he was fired without notice and is now defending himself against this. Bad luck because Grings can’t do anything for this episode. As a coach, she still had to control the bad mood in the team during the September meeting due to the incident not being handled from the players’ perspective.

Communication continues to prove to be a problem

But the string of failures is also long. It’s clear: Grings always had problems with communication. She never quite found the connection, certainly not with the main characters around Captain Lia Wälti, Ramona Bachmann (32) and Co. According to information from Blick, she repeatedly failed to find the right tone internally and left the players irritated. Such as the exclusion of talent Riola Xhemaili (20) from the World Cup selection, which left her at home with “physical shortcomings”.

Even when record player Ana Maria Crnogorcevic (33), who publicly complained about this, was not nominated, Grings did not seem confident in moderation. Until the end, it was unlikely that the dispute was truly resolved.

It is symptomatic that communication now became her downfall, because she never informed the SFV internally about the investigations against her in Germany. The year of horror ends with a bang for the remaining two games.