Marked for Marwin Hitz
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marwin Hitz commits to Sion for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
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
Words at Sion training over how hard people work
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Loan watch
Ryan Kessler counts the days
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match25 Jan 2027
Sion are in real trouble now
Position 10, 12 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Numa Lavanchy: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sion have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market25 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
In brief
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Market
Sion say no — this time
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Squad
Tempers go at Sion
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Squad
Words at Sion training over how hard people work
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Squad
The manager makes an example of Marwin Hitz
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match18 Nov 2026
Sion through in the cup
A 1‑1 win over Zurich, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Anthony Racioppi: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match18 Nov 2026
The wait goes on for Sion
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Sion
Anthony Racioppi 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Baltazar falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Marwin Hitz 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sion can pretend not to have heard.
Match12 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Sion's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sion has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Sion training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabian Frei is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match12 Sep 2026
1‑3 to Grasshopper, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rilind Nivokazi, and the manager let it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Franck Surdez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
5 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Shots: 6, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Sep 2026
Every point is an argument now for Sion
Position 8 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market7 Sep 2026
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Rilind Nivokazi reports back to Sion with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Match5 Sep 2026
6 matches without a win for Sion
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Sion are no longer polite ones.
Market7 Sep 2026
Sion say no — this time
The offer from Young Boys for Benjamin Kololli was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Sion
Rilind Nivokazi 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 ratings7 Sep 2026
Théo Berdayes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.67. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Franck Surdez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Marwin Hitz dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Sion did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match29 Aug 2026
The wait goes on for Sion
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Sion are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Marwin Hitz
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.50 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 8.40 — 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
The chances came and went for Ilyas Chouaref
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
In brief
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Squad
The manager has not finished forgetting Baltazar's mistake
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Match
Honours even between Sion and Lugano
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Squad
5 new faces, and Sion are still learning each other