In their current state, Young Boys do not give the impression that they will find a way out of their epochal slump. Coach Patrick Rahmen may have experienced his dernière in Basel.
It is a contrast that wonderfully captures the emotional situation in football Bern and Basel on this Sunday evening. While the FCB players celebrate for minutes in front of the Muttenzer Curve after this hard-fought 1-0 win, the Young Boys players trot wordlessly into the dressing room one after the other with a blank look on their faces.
Von Ballmoos' gift
Only one turns into the green-carpeted mixed zone. Because he has to. Because it's in his job description as captain. So David von Ballmoos, the most successful player in YB history, stands in front of a handful of microphones and tries to find words for why these Young Boys are currently light years away from their championship form. Why they have already lost for the fifth time in the ninth round of the championship and only won once.
They put up a good fight and didn't concede much with one man less, says the goalkeeper, proving that he has the gift that many players are blessed with in the cliché-ridden business of football: To emphasize the positive when there doesn't seem to be much positive. The Emmental native adds that the team lacked the necessary luck, thus continuing to use the cliché-ridden phrasebook. After all, the Bernese almost equalized late on with Mohamed Ali Camara's header.
That was always a quality of the Bernese on their way to becoming serial champions. Making the most of a few chances. Von Ballmoos knows this, but so does Patrick Rahmen, the coach who set out on a mission in the summer to continue Bern's domination of Swiss football.
Rahmen's lack of arguments
This Sunday, the Basel native will also be asked about the reasons for Bern's crisis at his former place of work. He also says sentences that he has dictated into microphones countless times this season in countless interview zones between St. Gallen and Barcelona. "I can't blame the team. Everyone fought to the end," says Rahmen, who emphasizes that his team played a good match until the "justified" red card against Sandro Lauper.
Even if his words come across as combative, there is also a visible emptiness in Rahmen's eyes when he is asked whether he fears for his job. The 55-year-old knows how the football business works. He knows that, apart from the successful qualification for the Champions League phase, he has few sporting arguments on his side that would suggest he will still be YB coach after the two-week national team break.
"I'm in daily contact with the sporting management around Christoph Spycher and Steve von Bergen," says Rahmen. "We'll also see each other tomorrow when the players are off." What he doesn't know at this point is that sporting director von Bergen had an intensive exchange with assistant coach Zoltan Kadar in the catacombs after the match. It is quite possible that the 58-year-old Romanian will be appointed interim boss again on Monday.
SDA
