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One last time show your decency. Marcel Koller intervenes when his assistant Carlos Bernegger tries to verbally assault Jean-Pierre Nsame. Koller restrains Bernegger and pushes him towards the bench. He also wants to present a good image at the moment of defeat, this bitter defeat. Go with class. It’s a picture that sums up Marcel Koller’s time at FC Basel in a fraction of a second. Even if everything around him collapses, if he has to take another hit, he keeps his face. In a moment that should really belong to him, he takes care of another. It’s 7:21 pm and FC Basel has just lost the cup final to YB.
A title, but not the great successes
Moments later, Marcel Koller runs into the field with his head down. He greets his players who meet him on the road with a punch. Until the paths of Koller and Fabian Frei cross. The midfielder pats his coach sympathetically, even comfortably, on the back. Nice gesture. And one that shows that now there is harmony between team and coach. Despite two difficult years, which were characterized by secondary scenes, but also by disagreements in the line-ups or changes in the games. But the final scenes of this cup final show: The riots in the executive suite have come together. So did Frei and Koller, the player and his coach who were kicked out of the captain’s team last summer.
With these significant scenes, Marcel Koller’s time in Basel ends. The 59-year-old was on the sidelines for 101 games. He can boast of his victory in the 2019 cup, his participation in yesterday’s final and his advance to the quarter-finals of the Europa League. “But it was not enough for the big hits,” says Koller himself after the match, referring to the championship title that he missed twice. In his words, however, not only the disappointment resounds, but also those of the events that occurred throughout his tenure. “There was a lot of turbulence at the club,” he says firmly but objectively.
He had already let out his anger on Friday when he first spoke with remarkable clarity about what he had to endure. He and the team deserved a medal, he said. Because the team had to accept losses of substance again and again, and the discussions took place behind the backs of the players and the coaching staff. Because the well-paid club employees were only challenged and never sympathized with.
It is bitter that these two years ended with a bitter defeat in the Cup final, in which FC Basel was better in the first half. The outgoing coach would have deserved the title. There is a void. A disappointment, ”he says. Therefore, Koller finds it difficult to take stock. He seems a bit tired, in fact more depressed than he rarely did in his time in Basel. It will take a few days and weeks for you to tune out and gather energy for new thoughts and projects. And to digest and process. “I’ve been a coach for 23 years and I didn’t think I could learn a lot of new things there. But it was the case. “His main goal was never to make his players feel nervous or under pressure. And you can say: He did it.
It suits him that the great and conciliatory farewell is denied by a mistake of one of his players, Djordje Nikolic. That he is a player in a position where there were no alternatives after the departure of Jonas Omlin, too. Koller doesn’t want to complain. He does not reprimand Nikolic, saying he did not see the photos. The FCB will lose this impeccable communication.
Marcel Koller collected his seven things from the Joggeli last night. It will leave a void in your locker, but perhaps also a void in the club in terms of sovereignty and tranquility.
Finally, he is asked what he thinks the team he has cared for for two years will have in the new season. “That is no longer my job,” he says firmly. And then with remarkable relief. Then it’s over. He did it. And he leaves the stadium for the last time with his head held high as coach of FC Basel.
