ZSC coach Marc Crawford: “Seger is the greatest leader I know”

Blick: Marc Crawford, do you know the TV show “Ted Lasso”?
Marc Crawford: Oh yeah, I’m a big fan of Ted. My daughter is also a sports psychologist, which makes it particularly exciting for me because I get value for my money. The series is about everything that makes up life in a team, but especially about the relationships between people. The mental side of sports is beautifully depicted through the characters, and it’s really well done.

How much of Ted Lasso, the empathetic, usually gentle and rarely loud trainer, is there in you?
(Grins.) I’d like to be a little more like Ted, but there’s probably not much in common. Although: There are a few parallels between Ted and every coach in the world.

Does your assistant Rob Cookson have anything in common with the fascinatingly erratic assistant coach Coach Beard in the TV series?
(Laughs.) Coach Beard is a great character, and Rob is basically Coach Beard, or even more so if he had a beard.

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Would Cookson sing a Lady Gaga song in front of the whole team at a karaoke bar?
He probably would, but I think it could very well be just me. Ted Lasso once sang at a funeral. Of course this is all fiction, but the authors manage to describe the chemistry, lifestyle and daily life within a team to the point. What really grabs me is the drawing of the characters, the humanity, everyone can probably recognize themselves in one of these characters. You can watch one of the documentary series that have already been filmed about several major football clubs – there is no big difference between reality and Ted Lasso.

Is there anyone close to Roy Kent at the Lions right now? This leader of old grit and grain – but of course not as exaggerated as at the beginning of the series, cynical, growling, swearing that everyone cringes when he speaks. More of a humane Roy Kent, more like he is portrayed in the third season.
When I think of leaders, I think of Mathias Seger. He is a brilliant person, the way he ticks, the way he radiates. Roy Kent was socialized on the streets of London, in a tough environment and so on – and Seger grew up in Uzwil, wow. He often told what it was like, how he grew up, how he first went to Rapperswil and eventually ended up here in Zurich and made his dream come true. Today you still see his father in the stadiums, where he still does what he loves most: watching hockey. In principle, Seger resembles Roy Kent, but it is not this toughness as described in the series, but rather the empathy that you only discover deep beneath the rough skin of Roy Kent. Seger’s toughness was his ability to compete.

You have experienced many leaders in your career.
Mathias Seger was the greatest leader I have ever had on a team. And I’ve been around a lot of good leaders, in the NHL or in Europe. But with Seger everything somehow came together, he always knew how the players were doing, what was going on with the others, what needed to be done, he was sensitive to the people, the situation and the dressing room .

You once said that even passionate coaches can’t think about sports 24 hours a day. How do you distract yourself?
I no longer have as many distractions as I did a few years ago, somehow time is becoming increasingly scarce. But I really like listening to music, I’m interested in all types of music. And of course I love movies.

What was the last movie you saw?
That was ‘Rustin’. It is about the black civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and the March on Washington in 1963, when Martin Luther King gave his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech. I think the actor plays Rustin (Colman Domingo, editor)actually deserves an Oscar.

Back to sports. How has the young talent in Switzerland developed during the time you were not working here?
The children are better educated and better prepared. This is the change I noticed. There used to be individual players who stood out, but now the majority of players as a whole are much further along, much more mature and better. Perhaps this also has something to do with the fact that nowadays more and more young Swiss people are going abroad to get closer to the international top.

Before your second stint in Zurich, you had the opportunity to take over the Italian national team with the vision of the 2026 Olympic Games. Why did you refuse? You love Italy.
Oh yes, I really love Italy and my sister lives in Rome. The offer from the Italian federation was interesting, but it also scared me a bit because I would have to commit for a very long time and I didn’t want that at the time. I will be 65 years old in 2026.

The contract with Zurich expires in 2025. Are you going to break up then?
I can’t say that. All I can say is that I won’t be a coach for another ten years. My father worked in hockey until he was 85 or 86, and I saw what that meant to my mother. My mother died of Alzheimer’s disease, a particularly severe form, but while she was still healthy, my father worked. My mother has already traveled around the world, visiting us children all over the world, but alone, without my father. I love my dad, but this is something I want to do differently. I can’t say when, but when the time comes, I will feel it. My wife likes that I am a trainer, she likes being here and doing things. But I want her to be able to look forward to what comes next: her first, not the sport or me. I am very aware of what that means.

But right now you’re still in the middle of it.
Yes, and I enjoy it. I hope others enjoy it too, that’s important too. But that doesn’t always work.

You don’t have to please everyone. Maybe the referees don’t like you as much as others.
Of course I know what to do. In this incident (In February 2023, Crawford called Finnish referee Kaukokari a bastard, editor.) The signs were there, but I didn’t recognize them, which annoyed me the most. What works and what doesn’t? I know. But do I remember it at the moment when the anger arises? An important lesson for me is to pay close attention to these signals. I’m getting better at this. The job is often associated with pressure, stress, excitement and tension – but that is what characterizes this job, that is what we like and value. We all love the thrill of competition, it’s about winning and losing, but you’re in a showcase and you have to remember that.

Speaking of excitement: the playoffs are just around the corner. How important is this first place for you after qualifying?
We have worked all year for this. The play-offs are a brilliant format, most recently the first won in qualifying against the second in the final home game. This means: Home advantage played a role. But the best person from the qualification could theoretically be thrown out in the first round. You would think something like this shouldn’t be possible, but it happens again and again. That’s what makes it all so exciting.

Is the pressure particularly high in Zurich?
Not particularly big. In professional sports, pressure is everywhere, but that’s just part of the tension that drives us. If there were no pressure in professional sports, it wouldn’t be a sensation.