A year after his miraculous rescue, Neuchâtel Xamax is preparing to fall back into the Challenge League. It was almost written in advance.
In Neuchâtel Xamax, 2019 will be remembered as the year of the miracle. That of an unexpected maintenance during the barrage against Aarau, despite a 4-0 home defeat in the first leg. In the corridors of the Maladière, this June 2 at the Brügglifeld has been remembered in all memories, recalled in all contexts. A feat like there are not two in a story.
Yet that day, Xamax may have already signed his relegation for the following season. Original sin does not come from this rise of the impossible. Rather from the weeks leading up to it. When Stéphane Henchoz, in the middle of a rescue operation, learned that he would not continue, whatever the end result. When the Rouge et Noir club, under the leadership of President Christian Binggeli, decided to adopt a new policy. More young people, a trainer (Joël Magnin) and a model inspired by Thun, it was said at the time. We have to admit that the idea did not last long.
A political bankruptcy
‘Failure is sporting, but also political.’ The report is bitter and it comes from Laurent Walthert. ‘There are choices made by the club, with a Xamax 2.0 which had to focus on young people, with a staff where except Jörg Stiel, no one had coached higher than the 1st League, recites the Neuchâtel captain. It was a club bias, but the idea failed. This Xamax 2.0 was not enough. There were reinforcements at Christmas, but the evil was already deep. ‘ The criticism is sharp, it comes from within, from one of those who have given Xamax a soul in recent years.
It is shared by Jean-François Collet, who bought the club’s shares from the Binggeli family (Christian and his son Grégory) last winter. ‘Who thought that the team at the start of the season could keep up ?, asks the Vaudois. Wanting to create a training club was utopian. With the players there, Xamax could not race. We tried to do our best at Christmas, but failed to save ourselves. ‘ Attentive, the Walthert observer is hardly more measured: ‘Xamax has again worked in a hurry. I knew from June 2019 that it would be complicated. The goal was to stay alive, to try to be in the game until the end to pass the shoulder in the money-time. But we’ve always missed a little something. ‘
It is the chronicle of a season without relief, of a relegation which quickly proved inevitable. ‘You have to look reality in the face, says the guard. If Xamax was alive until the 34th day, it is thanks to the first round of Thun (red: 9 points at the break, five less than Neuchâtel). It made us believe it. ‘ But the Neuchâtelois have never had a Super League team. No doubt that Raphaël Nuzzolo would score goals everywhere else, that the strength of a Marcis Oss would be an interesting argument for the competition, that the reinforcements Musa Araz, then Xavier Kouassi have a certain impact and that Léo Seydoux, on loan from Young Boys, is the only success of this failed policy. The rest? Complementary players, at best, who should never be so important at this level.
Go back to go up?
The inventory that will be made upstream of the future season must take this into account. It falls to Stéphane Henchoz, of course, who will remain in post, even if this time he failed in this almost impossible mission. To Jean-François Collet, too. Symbol of this stillborn Xamax 2.0, its takeover took the club into a different approach, where the results counted more than the initial project. The replacement of Joël Magnin eight days from the end was the most recent illustration. ‘I had already hesitated to change coach before the post-Covid recovery’, he confides.
But the boss is not under the illusion: it will be difficult to go up immediately. ‘To have a solid project, we have to start from training, but we need a little time to make Xamax a lasting training club, where we can also sell our best young people. So, in the meantime, we will have to find intermediate solutions. We will make the most competitive team possible, but we have to be honest: we cannot say that we will come back for sure. ‘ In any case, we will have to stick to a realistic idea this time.
/ ATS
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