Mario Sager coached six U14 players who made it into professional football. But he also experienced how brutally fate can strike.
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- Mario Sager coached six U14 players at FC Lucerne who later made it into professional football.
- The 39-year-old looks back with blue Sport and shares a few anecdotes. There are beautiful episodes that fill him with pride, but also sad ones.
- However, he does not want to take credit for the fact that several of his former players became professionals. A lot of people were involved and, of course, the players themselves were also very talented.
Coaching a youth team can be incredibly satisfying - especially when you're dealing with the best players of the year. Shaping them, honing them, developing them and possibly seeing them take off. This is what trainers dream of, regardless of the sport or level.
Luck - and an iron will
Mario Sager can tell you a thing or two about it. In 2009/10, he coached the U14 team of FC Lucerne - a team that stood out. Six players who went through Sager's school have gone on to become professionals. Names such as Aldin Turkes, who most recently played for Lausanne and Winti and is now under contract in Sarajevo; Nicolas Haas, who made it to Serie A with Atalanta and now Empoli; Stefan Knezevic, who regularly leads FCL onto the pitch as captain; Remo Arnold, team leader at Winterthur for years; Harun Alpsoy, who moved to Turkey, first to Antalyaspor and then to Adanaspor; or Noam Baumann, the former Lugano goalkeeper who now plays in Crete.
0 to 1 is the ratio of U14 players who make it as professionals. So what did Sager do right? He himself played in the FCL youth team, including twice in the first team in the Challenge League in the mid-noughties, later in the 1st Division and 2nd Division Inter, for example in Eschenbach, where his team competed in the Cup against FC Basel and the then Challenge League teams Winterthur and Wohlen. After that, the coaching job became his vocation. "Of course, it was also luck that so many players were playing in the same team at the same time, but I knew how to tackle each individual."
The fact that Sager, now 39 years old, must have a feel for people is proven by his professional career: he manages 38 employees as managing director of a company that offers sports camps and sporting events. The U14 team's turnaround at FCL came after a 5-0 defeat in St. Gallen, in which team leader Haas even missed a penalty. Sager confronts the squad and asks them the question: "Do you want to sacrifice every weekend to travel around Switzerland and then lose 5-0? It's too much of a waste of time for me," the then 24-year-old coach countered.
He knew that the team had huge potential, but also had the problem that it was fully aware of this - a tendency towards frugality developed, for example in the person of Knezevic. "Stefan was a huge talent, you can see that today. A personality. But if he didn't see the point of an exercise, for example in fitness training, he was simply lazy. But as soon as it was a matter of winning a crossbar shoot-out within the team, he was on fire."
Sager steered him in the right direction. Or the example of Nicolas Haas. "He perhaps studied too much and kept holding himself back. It was a matter of conveying a relaxed attitude and taking the pressure off him."
After the 0:5 in St. Gallen, the FCL U14s never lose a game again - sweeping the two league leaders, FCZ away and Basel at home 5:2, off the field, among others. The team has a huge run, and Sager continues to follow each individual with great interest and a little pride.
The example of Knezevic also shows Sager that, in his opinion, new training models at U14 level, as they are cultivated in the association, do not promote the decisive skills: "7 against 7 across the field and without a result - that doesn't help." As early as possible, especially at 14, skills should also be trained that are needed as a professional: Competitive toughness, the will to win, relentlessness. "This mentality is what got the boys from back then into the Super League." But the boys had something in common. A great love for the game of football and fun and enjoyment in every training session.
The case of Rupperswil
Sager also experienced how brutally and unfairly fate can strike. Dion Schauer is also part of the U14 team. He even scored two goals in the 5:2 win against Basel. Later, he, his mother, his girlfriend and his little brother became victims of the quadruple murder in Rupperswil. Schauer was 19 years old at the time. "Dion was such a good guy, likeable, warm. Just like his mother, who came to almost every game, or his father, who always drove him from Rupperswil to Lucerne for training."
Schauer soon moved back home after the U14s because the journey to Lucerne became too much. "Then I read something about a quadruple murder, and suddenly I realized that Dion was a victim." A shock that Sager, like everyone who knew the family, struggled to come to terms with.
Family is important at every stage of life. Sager has four children, aged between one and ten. He now coaches the two older children, Fabian and Emilia, at SC Seengen. At some point, the effort became too much. He played himself and later coached the first teams in Hitzkirch and Küssnacht am Rigi. His company grew, and it became increasingly difficult to reconcile his job with his 50% workload at FCL. Sager opted for the company - and later for the family. "This way I can be close to everyone. That's just great."
He is still proud of his success as a trainer at FCL. However, he would like to emphasize that many coaches and entire training teams have worked with the six professional players mentioned above during their junior years.
2009/10 season: Team photo of Lucerne's U14s
Top from left to right: Mario Sager, Fabio Niederhauser, Ramon Barmettler, Stefan Knezevic, Alex Halef, Aldin Turkes, Ivo Thalmann, Joel Steiger, Dion Schauer, Yves Roeskens.
Bottom from left to right: Luca Müller, Harun Alpsoy, Fabio Rutschi, Jeffrey Keiser, Marco Vrhovac, Noam Baumann, Joel xy , Marcell Wicki, Robin Zemp.
