FC Winterthur is a matter close to Uli Forte's heart. The coach, who was hired in the winter, is doing everything he can to prevent a third relegation with a Zurich team.
02.02.2025, 05:00
02.02.2025, 08:26
SDA
What does it say about a club when the new coach is asked in the introductory video why he has accepted this "suicide mission"? On the one hand, that the club has a large dose of self-irony. In this respect, Uli Forte suits FC Winterthur. The 50-year-old, who has been coach of the Super League's bottom club since the end of December, is down-to-earth, knows his limits and can also admit mistakes.
Qualities that, when you look at his career, make it clear where they come from. Forte, the son of Italian parents and raised as a secondo, had to work hard for a lot of things - especially in football. A good 30 years ago, he completed a trial training session at the then NLB club Winterthur. But coach Martin Andermatt had no use for the defender, so he stayed with the ambitious amateur club Red Star Zurich.
Forte gained at least a little NLB experience with Kriens before returning to Red Star, which was playing in the 2nd interregional league at the time, as player-coach. Unlike many other coaches in the football business, he did not have an illustrious playing career. But Forte had something else: a great desire to learn, an inner fire and the urge to prove himself.
A constant up and down
Players who were coached by Uli Forte emphasize two things about him in particular: his tactical ideas, in which running routes play an important role, and his demanding and at the same time very human manner. Forte always managed to get his players mentally ready for the game.
The great successes in the Cup testify to this. In his first season with Wil, where Forte signed his first professional contract as a coach in 2006, the team from the second-highest league reached the semi-finals and was named "Cup Team of the Year". In 2013 and 2016, Forte won the competition with Grasshoppers (victory in the final against Basel) and FC Zurich (victory in the final against Lugano). Three years ago, he advanced to the semi-finals again with the then Challenge League club Yverdon.
On the other side of the coin are his only foreign adventure with Arminia Bielefeld, which ended after just four rounds of the championship, and his rather meagre results in the Super League. At St. Gallen, he was released in February 2011 and the team was relegated at the end of the season. At FCZ (2016) and Grasshoppers (2019), he was brought in as a "fireman", but was unable to prevent the team from dropping into the Challenge League. Now a hat-trick of the unpleasant kind is looming: Forte could be relegated from the Super League with three Zurich clubs.
Winterthur as a project close to his heart
The big difference this time is that he has more time, says Forte. At FCZ he was signed in May, at GC in April. That's why it was more of a "suicide mission" there than in Winterthur, where he was at least able to influence the team during the winter break. "Of course it was an ultra-short preparation, but there are still a lot of games to come," says Forte. "And I'm convinced that if we change a few details, we can do it."
Winterthur, where Forte attended grammar school in his youth, is a project close to the coach's heart. The club is now in its third Super League season after its sensational promotion in 2022. After a bumpy start, the big surprise came last season, when the new split-table format was used for the first time: the club reached the championship round, leaving teams such as Zurich, Lucerne and Basel behind.
But even then, sporting director Oliver Kaiser warned that after 40 years in the Challenge League, more was needed to establish the club in the Super League in the long term. This is now evident in this season, in which Winterthur pulled the ripcord after just 13 points from 18 match days and released coach Ognjen Zaric. According to an interview with "Der Landbote", Kaiser hopes that his successor Forte will be a team "that fights together with a lot of energy and unity".
Digesting the "huge disappointment"
The start was a success: in Bern, the team with the weakest defense in the league kept a clean sheet and snatched a point from Swiss champions YB. Last weekend, however, FCW suffered a setback. A valuable point was still possible against leaders Lugano after leading 2-0 at the break. Even with "just" one point, they could have reduced the gap to Yverdon to the symbolically important three-point mark. Instead, FCW squandered their lead and conceded 2-3 in stoppage time.
"Totally bitter", summarized Forte, "a huge disappointment", added midfielder Luca Zuffi. Now it's time to put the game behind them as quickly as possible and look ahead. After all, Sunday will be the big relegation duel with Yverdon, who also hired a new coach in Paolo Tramezzani during the winter break. The Vaud side have also been active on the transfer market and surprised everyone this week with the signing of Antonio Marchesano, who Forte knows well from his FCZ days.
It is clear that Winterthur will remain in last place in the table after the match. The question is whether the gap to the rest will narrow, remain the same or widen.
