Marked for Stan Held
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Aug 2030
Tempers go at Sion
Ilyas Chouaref was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings12 Aug 2030
Marked 8.86 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad12 Aug 2030
54 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings12 Aug 2030
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Ilyas Chouaref knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ilyas Chouaref trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Ryan Kessler gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match10 Aug 2030
Honours even between Sion and Thun
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings12 Aug 2030
Shots: 12, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings12 Aug 2030
Shots: 7, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom24 Jun 2030
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Sion
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market24 Jun 2030
Noel Caliskan has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sion they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad24 Jun 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
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Squad
Stan Held gets it from the manager
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Boardroom
The Sion production line keeps running
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Squad
Karsten Gerbracht is not doing himself any favours
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Squad
The manager plants his flag on Baltazar
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Jun 2030
Tempers go at Sion
Ilyas Chouaref was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Jun 2030
The manager makes an example of Ryan Kessler
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad17 Jun 2030
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Sion would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 May 2030
Tempers go at Sion
Ilyas Chouaref was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market20 May 2030
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ryan Kessler’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad20 May 2030
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Josias Lukembila has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Feb 2030
Tempers go at Sion
Ilyas Chouaref was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad25 Feb 2030
51 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad25 Feb 2030
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Sion know it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 May 2029
Tempers go at Sion
Ilyas Chouaref was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad21 May 2029
Noah Moretti knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Noah Moretti trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad21 May 2029
No hiding place for Stan Held
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stan Held, and the manager let it.
In brief
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Squad
The manager plants his flag on Baltazar
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Feb 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Feb 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Noel Caliskan, and the manager let it.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Ryan Kessler knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ryan Kessler trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.