Who next for Switzerland job?

Will Swiss under-21 coach Köbi Kuhn take over the senior side? Keystone Archive

The Swiss football association say they plan to appoint a new national coach within a month, following the sudden resignation on Friday of former trainer Enzo Trossero.

The 48-year-old Argentinian asked the Swiss FA to release him from his contract less than two days after Switzerland’s crushing World Cup qualifier defeat at home to Slovenia.

Current Swiss under-21 coach, Köbi Kuhn, has been tipped as the favourite to succeed Trossero by many of the country’s newspapers, with Christian Gross, Marcel Koller, Alain Geiger and Andy Egli also being put forward as possible candidates.

Saturday’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper celebrated Trossero’s departure, describing the former coach as “an unapproachable, stubborn stranger, who always acted as if the Swiss should just be happy to have him as coach.”

Insisting that Trossero’s successor should be Swiss, the paper lends its support to Kuhn, describing him as “a man of integrity, competence and energy.”

The Blick newspaper is also convinced that Kuhn is the football association’s top candidate, but questions whether the former FC Zurich player has the necessary credentials for the job.

Pointing out that Kuhn’s six years with the national juniors constitute his only management experience, the Blick asks whether the 58-year-old trainer can muster the “relentless need-to-win” required of international football coaches.

Of the other possible candidates, former Lucerne coach Andy Egli has told the Berner Zeitung that he would see the chance to manage Switzerland as “an unbelievable honour”. Egli also dismissed as “absolute nonsense” the rumours that he had left Lucerne in anticipation of being offered the Switzerland job.

Christian Gross’s chances of succeeding Trossero seem minimal, after his current club, Basel, insisted that they had no plans to release Gross from his contract.

Unlike Gross, Marcel Koller has a get-out clause that would allow him to leave St Gallen if the Swiss football association offer him the post. Having already turned down the job once, following Gilbert Gress’s resignation, Koller told the BaslerZeitung newspaper that he may now be ready to reconsider.

“I gave a categorical ‘no’ last time, because I felt the offer had come too soon,” Koller explained. “This time I wouldn’t say ‘no’ categorically.”

The Swiss media seems united in one thing – whoever the association do choose to appoint will still need to overcome a number of the obstacles that confronted Trossero.

While keen to argue that many of the Argentinian’s problems were of his own making, the weekend papers admit that the apparent shortage of top-quality Swiss strikers, difficulties with players’ egos and the over-interference of association officials are issues that could all resurface once the new man takes over.

swissinfo with agencies