From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Grasshopper come back empty-handed
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.
Squad17 Aug 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.93, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match15 Aug 2026
Sion get the job done against Zurich
A 3‑2 win over Zurich, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 9.15 — 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.65 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Market17 Aug 2026
Sion and Lukas Wedl are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Aug 2026
Basel come back empty-handed
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Ali Kabacalman has come up in conversations Sion were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Anthony Racioppi and Sion agree another 5 years.
Squad10 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Marked 8.53 — 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Théo Berdayes
“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.
Match8 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market3 Aug 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.
Squad3 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jan Kronig commits to Sion for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“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.
Match1 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Sion against Basel
0‑1 to Basel, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months and counting on Jan Kronig
Still no offer on the table, and Jan Kronig’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
Altin Shala is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sion has been clear about where Altin Shala stands, which is more than many ever get.