Champion Servette Geneva misses the playoffs

Servette misses the playoffs, but doesn’t make a drama out of it

The master is out – and no one complains

Won the Champions League, missed the playoffs. The reasons? Even those directly involved are fishing in trouble.

Published: 2 minutes ago

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Says it all: The fans thank you after the outing and wish you a nice holiday.

Dino KesslerHead of Ice Hockey Department

In the event of bitter disappointments, many sports clubs have a few standard phrases in their PR repertoire: They then grandly threaten in-depth and ruthless analyses, which of course take a lot of time.

Often nothing happens afterwards. Which is often not a problem because the conductors usually don’t know what exactly happened.

Champions League as an excuse?

At Servette, the most reliable answer is: The Champions League cost us energy, so we were no longer able to react in the championship. Geneva’s sports director Marc Gautschi (41), a man who always chooses his words carefully, says: “But we didn’t look good in November, and until then we only had two games more than others.” The team actually went into reserves for the Champions League, but “we missed the start of the championship”. “Everyone who ended up in the top six was at the front right from the start.”

Was it perhaps the master blues, this oft-quoted emotional state that cannot be measured by any statistics in the world, that cost Servette the playoffs? In fact, the team has invested a lot of energy in the Champions League. After the victory, there was perhaps a bit of a lack of motivation to go back to the reserves in the championship. “It’s good for the league that the champions are out,” says Gautschi. “We weren’t ready for the 52 games of the regular season. And if you’re not ready in this league, then it’s not enough.”

The circle of suspects is small

But the master does not leave empty-handed. This probably makes it even more difficult to find a weak point in the structure when analyzing: the energy that flowed into the Champions League was rewarded with another triumph. Only one Swiss champion has ever found themselves in such a situation: the ZSC Lions in the 2008/2009 season. For the Zurich team it was over in the quarterfinals.

In Geneva too, people now want to sit down in peace and find out who or what exactly is responsible for this early exit. According to Gautschi, the circle of suspects is manageable: “It is entirely our fault that we were thrown out.”

(Collaboration: Matthias Davet)