Season 26 – SC Kriens – Swiss Super League
The Swiss Super League consists of 10teams, in a play-each-other-four-times format. We were predicted 10th by the media, and the board and fans asked for a decent fight against relegation.
We also get to play Aarau, a local rival apparently so fierce that our fans will rip up their season tickets if I sign an Aarau player. If he’s good enough and cheap enough he’s coming in, people.
But I didn’t have to face that yet. And we are playing most of our games at Luzern U19s ground, which meant our home attendance went from ~2500 to ~12000!
We were consistently inconsistent all season long, following up a dreadful performance at home to last-placed Neuchatel Xamax to a comprehensive away win over top-placed Sion.
But our saw-toothed Past Positions graph trended slowly up, and we finished 6th, 10points clear of the relegation playoff position and 17points behind winners Lauzern (who came up with us last year!). It was a very close league for the most part, until the last quarter of games.
Good news/bad news: Our main ST was top scorer with 17 (he really kept us up), but he’s leaving on a free after the season. I don’t know how we’ll replace him.
Other bits of good news: The reserves won their league, and the U19s won their league for the 4th year in a row.
The ground has been modified – to a 2500 all-seater … hmmmm.
Players in: 4 for $120k
Players out: 6 for $250k
League Position – 6th from 10
P36 W12 D11 L13 -1
Season 27 – SC Kriens – Swiss Super League
So this season started with the loss of our (and the league’s) top goal scorer on a free and the off-season such as it is was about trying to replace him.
The scouts found no-one good, and in the end I had to overpay a little for an established Chilean ST from Grasshopper. He proved to be an inadequate replacement.
The media predicted us 10th again, but I thought we had a good chance of getting 3rd and European football. However, the league was desperately tight again, and ultimately the loss of our key MR meant 4th was where we should have finished.
The last 4 games started LLD (really unlucky in these, should have won at least one), leaving us with 6th but the chance to send arch rivals Aarau down in the last game.
But a WC Qualifying game robbed us of Chilean ST and we were our frequent inept selves in front of goal, we lost 2-0 and the rest of the games went the worst way possible and we finished 9th, having to playoff against the runner-up from the Challenge League to stay in the Super League.
Our heads were down from the way the league ended, La Chaux-de-Fonds were on a high, and we fell apart 0-5 in the first leg and could only draw 1-1 at home to be relegated.
At times this season we played beautifully and at others we played like a bunch of strangers. The problem is I don’t know what turned one type of performance into the other. The reserves and U19s won their leagues again. There will need to be some through-flow now.
Players in: 3 for $2.8m (mostly for Chilean ST)
Players out: 14 for $5m
League Position – 9th from 10
P36 W12 D8 L16 +1 – 5points from 3rd.
I have kept my job but the board expect us to win the Challenge League. Easier said than done …
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