Grasshoppers Crash Out Of Super League

Three years ago, Uli Forte was appointed coach of Zurich with a handful of games left that season in a bid to save the 12-time national champions from relegation. Ultimately, he failed, but he did lead the team back to the top flight at the first attempt.

- Brian Homewood

And now Forte faces an almost identical job with Zurich’s neighbors, Grasshoppers after the country’s most successful club of all time crashed out of the Swiss Super League.

After a dramatic final two months of the season – which featured a change of president, three coaches and two matches abandoned – a 6-1 defeat at Young Boys means Grasshoppers will play in the Challenge League next term for the first time since 1951.

The club’s problems have been building up ever since they won the last of their 27 league titles, in 2003. In the following 16 years, there have been 13 coaches – plus Carlos Bernegger, who has stepped in on an interim basis four times – and eight presidents. And in that time, Basle has won 11 titles, Zurich three and Young Boys the last two.

Grasshoppers have also been homeless since 2007, when their Hardturm stadium – which hosted games at the 1954 World Cup – was closed for rebuilding, only for the project to get bogged down in a planning quagmire. In the meantime, the team has had to share the Letzigrund – an athletics stadium with a lukewarm atmosphere at the best of times – with Zurich. This has been particularly tough as clubs such as Basle, Young Boys, St Gallen, Lucerne, and Thun all play in centrally located, modern arenas that incorporate shopping centers and offices to provide much-needed extra revenue.