All about the next opponent: Interview with Bern supporter Gabriel | OneFootball

The final Cham­pi­ons League match of the year is here, with VfB Stutt­gart hos­ting the group’s bot­tom team, BSC Young Boys from Switz­er­land. YB fan Gabri­el from Radio Gelb-Schwarz gives us insights into how the reig­ning Super League cham­pi­ons are doing.

With the Red Stri­pe: How are the Young Boys of Bern curr­ent­ly per­forming in the Swiss Super League?

Gabri­el: Well, as you can see from the Super League table, this sea­son has been far from ide­al for us—it’s been unu­su­al. We’re curr­ent­ly in ninth place with only 22 points. I think we’re facing a chal­len­ging situa­ti­on for the first time in seve­ral years. Lucki­ly, the league is very balan­ced at the moment, so the gap isn’t too big yet. After 17 matches, we’re just 11 points behind first place, so there’s still some­thing to play for. That also appli­es to qua­li­fy­ing for the cham­pi­on­ship group of the top six teams. Howe­ver, we real­ly need to make some­thing hap­pen soon. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the team has missed seve­ral oppor­tu­ni­ties to achie­ve a real tur­n­around, most recent­ly during the weekend’s game in Sion. It’s a rocky road ahead, but I’m gene­ral­ly opti­mi­stic about the team’s deve­lo­p­ment next year. With a clean pre­pa­ra­ti­on, we could still climb up the ran­kings from behind.

Bern hasn’t ear­ned a sin­gle point in the Cham­pi­ons League and is at the bot­tom of the table. Why do you think that is?

Yes, unfort­u­na­te­ly, we’re at the bot­tom, but that was expec­ted. Nobo­dy had any illu­si­ons; ever­yo­ne knew we’d likely end up the­re. Sure, it would’ve been nice if we weren’t dead last. We part­ly have you to thank for this—after your per­for­mance in Bel­gra­de, we fell behind Red Star. We still have one last game at home against Red Star, and we’re hoping for a win to clo­se the cam­paign. The fact that we’re in this posi­ti­on, with no real chan­ce to qua­li­fy for the knock­out stages, was always clear to ever­yo­ne. It’s not dis­ap­poin­ting in that sen­se. We’ve had some good games—like against Inter at home, which was close—but also some bad ones, like against Ata­lan­ta Ber­ga­mo, whe­re we stood no chan­ce. That team is just bru­t­ally strong right now. We were also unlu­cky to draw Aston Vil­la from Pot 4, a much toug­her oppo­nent than we could’ve hoped for. But over­all, our per­for­mance ali­gns with expec­ta­ti­ons.

Joel Magnin has been the inte­rim coach sin­ce Octo­ber. How has the team deve­lo­ped under him? Are you satis­fied?

Joel Magnin took over the team again for the second time this calen­dar year. He had pre­vious­ly step­ped in during the spring, lea­ding us to the league title after repla­cing Rapha­el Wicky. Now, he’s step­ped up again from the second team and mana­ged to sta­bi­li­ze the squad. I think what the team nee­ded was a firm hand. Magnin isn’t the ste­reo­ty­pi­cal tough coach, like your for­mer coach—and our for­mer coach—Christian Gross, who repres­ents the “tough guy” arche­ty­pe. Magnin is empa­the­tic but also reso­lu­te and pro­vi­des clear rules. I think that’s exact­ly what the team nee­ded. Some play­ers requi­red this struc­tu­re, which wasn’t neces­s­a­ri­ly enforced by Wicky or Patrick Rah­men, his pre­de­ces­sor. Magnin quick­ly brought disci­pli­ne, and you can defi­ni­te­ly say he’s sta­bi­li­zed the team, streng­the­ned it, and got us back on track.

Sin­ce 2018, YB has dethro­ned Basel as the peren­ni­al cham­pi­ons, win­ning the title every year except in 2021. How did you achie­ve this?

The mira­cu­lous rise of the Young Boys after 32 title­l­ess years in 2018 was an incre­di­ble moment for all of us. It remains the high­light of my fan care­er. I was born after the last title in 1989. Then, sud­den­ly, it hap­pen­ed under the lea­der­ship of Chris­toph Spy­cher, who took over as sport­ing direc­tor. He instil­led hun­ger and deter­mi­na­ti­on in the team, along­side coach Adi Hüt­ter. They brought a new mind­set to the club, which had per­haps been a bit complacent—a trait often asso­cia­ted with Ber­ne­se peo­p­le. The fact that we mana­ged to dethro­ne Basel sur­pri­sed even us. We thought it would only last for a sea­son befo­re Basel over­took us again. But sin­ce then, we’ve ope­ra­ted with excep­tio­nal disci­pli­ne, made very few mista­kes, and main­tai­ned a calm lea­der­ship struc­tu­re. This level of pro­fes­sio­na­lism is rare in the Super League, and it’s been key to our suc­cess over the past eight years.

For­mer YB play­er Fabi­an Rie­der is now with VfB Stutt­gart. Do you still fol­low his deve­lo­p­ment?

We gene­ral­ly fol­low all our for­mer play­ers and are curious about how they deve­lop. With Fabi­an Rie­der, it’s even more so becau­se he’s a true Bernese—born in Bern but rai­sed a bit fur­ther north in the Solo­thurn regi­on. It was clear from his U16 days that he was desti­ned to be a star. His talent was evi­dent at every age level—his incre­di­ble com­po­sure on the ball impres­sed us imme­dia­te­ly. He joi­n­ed the first team at a very young age, and of cour­se, we’ve been clo­se­ly fol­lo­wing his jour­ney ever sin­ce. This includes his time in Ren­nes, whe­re things didn’t go so well due to a coa­ching chan­ge and his inju­ry, and now with you in Stutt­gart. The Bun­des­li­ga is much easier for us to fol­low, with weekly games and high­lights rea­di­ly available. We wish Fabo, as we call him, all the best in his care­er.

In addi­ti­on to the first teams, the U19 squads will face each other in the Youth League. What can you tell us about your U19 team?

In the Youth League, our team has alre­a­dy been eli­mi­na­ted. We won’t make it into the top 22 teams. None­thel­ess, we play­ed a solid cam­paign. We mana­ged a home vic­to­ry against Aston Vil­la but didn’t coll­ect any more points after that. The matches were all very clo­se, except against Barcelona’s La Masia aca­de­my. Often, we lost focus toward the end, which cost us one or two goals. We have a strong offen­si­ve line, but the con­cen­tra­ti­on tends to fade over time, lea­ding to con­ce­ded goals. I’m real­ly loo­king for­ward to the upco­ming match against your youth team and am curious about how it will unfold.

How would you descri­be your style of play? What are the strengths and weak­ne­s­ses?

As for strengths, I would high­light our ver­sa­ti­li­ty. I think we are capa­ble of mas­te­ring various play­ing sys­tems in the league. Often, we are forced to take the initia­ti­ve against wea­k­er oppon­ents who sit deep, but we’re also able to coun­ter and adapt when nee­ded. For ins­tance, in the Cham­pi­ons League against Inter, we reli­ed on a strong defen­si­ve set­up with spo­ra­dic coun­ter­at­tacks down the wings. Over­all, our play­ing style is quite unpredictable—which is both a strength and a weak­ne­ss. It can go eit­her way. One of our main weak­ne­s­ses is the lack of lea­der­ship on the field. Our cen­tral axis isn’t well-estab­lished and doesn’t pro­vi­de the sta­bi­li­ty we need. Joel Magnin has impro­ved this recent­ly, but we’ve lost the solid struc­tu­re and con­fi­dence that we had for many years, lea­ving us vul­nerable

Who is your play­er to watch?

One play­er to watch is defi­ni­te­ly Phil­ipp Ugri­nic in cen­tral mid­field. He has deve­lo­ped excep­tio­nal­ly well sin­ce joi­ning us two and a half years ago from league rival Luzern. He had a chal­len­ging first year but was alre­a­dy out­stan­ding in the Cham­pi­ons League last sea­son. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, he suf­fe­r­ed a toe frac­tu­re in the spring that kept him side­lined for a long time. Now he’s back—a very well-roun­ded play­er: strong, a powerful shoo­ter, quick decis­i­on-maker, and over­all a com­ple­te packa­ge. He’s a joy to watch.

Ano­ther name to high­light is Jaouen Had­jam, a left-back who joi­n­ed us from Paris. He’s an exci­ting play­er, often taking on one-on-one situa­tions and some­ti­mes suc­cee­ding even at the hig­hest level in the Cham­pi­ons League. Howe­ver, he’s also a bit of a risk. His defen­si­ve weak­ne­s­ses are evi­dent and come up repea­ted­ly, making him a play­er who swings bet­ween bril­li­ance and cha­os. But he’s always enter­tai­ning to watch.

Final­ly, your pre­dic­tion for the match?

I’m pre­dic­ting a 1–1 draw, whe­re we’ll secu­re our first point away at Stutt­gart. That would be a major suc­cess for us.

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Chris­ti­an Kas­par-Bart­ke/­Get­ty Images