The most important game of ex-Basel coach Wicky

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It is the big poster of the modern Swiss football era: Basel against YB. Those teams that have won 17 of the 23 league titles in the new millennium – if you count those of YB 2023 at all. The game of games. Especially in the current situation. For three reasons.

• YB is certain of the championship title with a 15-point lead. So it is currently the only game that is something for the Bernese.
• FCB won’t be champion anymore. Winning the Conference League is difficult given the competition (West Ham, Anderlecht, Nice, Fiorentina). The cup is therefore also the big title goal for FCB.
• And YB trainer Raphael Wicky (45) has a Basel past with an ugly ending. The Upper Valaisian started his coaching career as coach of Servette U14 and moved to FCB in 2013, where he took over the U18s. He became head coach there in 2017. Under him, FCB experienced the most successful Champions League campaign of all time. With the highest win (5-0 against Benfica Lisbon) and the highest number of points (12 points). But: in the championship, Wicky announces the end of the red-blue hegemony when he loses the title to … YB after eight championships in a row. But his release comes at a bizarre time: after two games into the new season.

“Of course it hurt. I needed some time to process it’, Wicky looks back. ‘But that’s over now. I don’t hold a grudge.” Because the bottom line is that he spent five wonderful years in Basel. “I’ve met a lot of great people. Five years is a long time in football. That’s why matches against FCB will always be special.”

Lost the knockout game against Anderlecht

And now Wicky’s most important yet. However, he says: “I don’t think so. It may sound like a sentence, but the next game is always the most important. That’s why it’s the one in Basel now. And of course because our goal is to win the cup. And for that we have to win this game.”

Wicky ruined the first important co-rendezvous at YB when the yellow-black missed the conference league group stage with a razor-sharp shot against Anderlecht. For the first time since 2015. The coach is now all the more measured by this game.

Basel has been waiting 13 games for a win

And the opponent will be very hot. Logically, the 13-time cup winner (YB has seven titles) is already waiting 13 games (!) for a win against the Bernese. The last one was in July 2020. But Wicky doesn’t pay much attention to this statistic either. “Every game had its own story. Why these are not comparable. And even the players will hardly know these numbers. And if: it is not decisive. »

Perhaps more importantly, Wicky omitted Cedric Itten, his top striker from Basel, in the final game against Servette. To protect him from FCB? “No. That was pure burden control. I spared no player.” Neither did Meschack Elia, who only played fifteen minutes in Geneva.

YB: only 3 defeats in 36 games

And yet this 1:2 for YB – only the third defeat of the season from 36 games after the 0:1 against Anderlecht and the 1:2 in St. Gallen – could have come at the perfect time. Like a hello-wake to the cupcracker. Which, of course, Wicky doesn’t see either. “For me there are no good times for defeat. Because I never like to lose.”

What is certain, however, is that a team will feel a particularly painful defeat today. Only one of the heavyweights will advance to the cup final.

Source : Blick