Coach Fabio Celestini has always been enthusiastic about playing football abroad. Now he is irritating with the destination Moscow

Fabio Celestini will turn 50 at the end of October. The coach has just had his best year, winning the double with FC Basel – under challenging conditions, accompanied by mistrust and question marks in the midst of his euphoria. Can the ignited love between him and Basel last? The closer the end of the season drew, the more obvious it became: The love is breaking at its peak.

Days pass after the cup win, and suddenly Spain is no longer an option for Celestini, because Getafe, the club Celestini once played for, is moving on with coach José Bordalás. Basel takes another few days before bidding Celestini farewell with hymns of praise. What now? On Friday, it's announced that the French-speaking Swiss isn't moving to Spain or any other foreign league—but rather, as if through the emergency exit, to Russia, where the rubles will undoubtedly be pouring in for him. To CSKA Moscow, the army club that's part of Vladimir Putin's sphere of influence.

Celestini no longer lifts Swiss trophies in Basel's red and blue, but instead presents memorabilia from his new employer in Moscow's red and blue. CSKA Moscow last won the national title in 2016 and finished third in the Russian Premier League this year. The club warmly welcomes the Swiss on its website ("Welcome home, Fabio") , announces that he will be able to bring some assistants with him, and doesn't forget to mention that the new employee has already attended a youth match.

Celestini is seeking new happiness in Moscow, success, recognition, and titles. In other words, everything that eluded him in Switzerland for so long. He had good times, in Lausanne (promotion), in Lugano (first phase), and also in Lucerne (2021 Cup victory in an empty Corona stadium), but the good times were always followed by bad ones. Sometimes inexplicable, almost mysterious.

Celestini got bogged down, always the challenger for whom his own country seemed too small. He was also the misunderstood one, who reminded the Vaudois of Stan Wawrinka, the former player who, in his younger days as a coach, doubted the competence of almost all officials who hadn't played football himself.

After winning the cup with Lucerne in 2021, Celestini gave an interview to the French-speaking newspaper "Le Matin Dimanche." He said, in essence, that in Switzerland, one is only considered a great coach once one has won titles. That has now been achieved: And: "I know that they will never give me YB and Basel." The interviewer asked twice why. The answer was twice: "I don't know." Celestini's wounds, who had a complicated history as a player on the national team and spent years in Johann Vogel's shadow, repeatedly reopened.

Celestini, in search of appreciation. After a brief stint under fire from FC Sion, he took over FC Basel at the end of October 2023, which had plummeted to the bottom of the table. The FC Basel that no one wanted to give him. Club chairman David Degen wasn't Celestini's first supporter, but he waved through the proposal. The need had become too great. Celestini stabilized the badly floundering team and, with the Shaqiri effect, led it to the league title and cup victory the following season.

And this without having been put under public pressure in the final phase of the championship.

He stood his ground, but he soon realized: Basel was no longer an option. The former captain of Olympique de Marseille eyed the promised land, the big game – and is now moving to Moscow. Behind the Iron Curtain and to a country that has been cut off from European football since the war of aggression against Ukraine. Celestini earns well in Moscow, but he's in danger of being forgotten there. Too far away, in another world, without a European Cup, receiving little to no attention in Western Europe.

Naturally, this move to the East comes with a heated accompaniment. The comments in Swiss media and forums are devastating. The moral cudgel is being wielded. A betrayal of the red and blue colors. Moscow! CSKA! How could anyone do this? Guillermo Abascal, also a former Basel coach, joined Spartak Moscow between 2022 and 2024 in the midst of the Ukraine war. He, too, was met with incomprehension and malice from Switzerland.

Moscow is a dubious place for a Swiss football coach. Politically, and athletically. At least from a Eurocentric perspective. Celestini's choice of employer is also surprising because, as a double winner, he didn't seem under pressure. Getafe fell through, yes. But why not wait a bit? He decided otherwise.

He's pleased that he can assemble his coaching team as he sees fit in Moscow. He's already pushed for concentrated decision-making power at smaller clubs like Lausanne, Lugano, and Lucerne. Now he can draw on a full complement of resources. In the Russian capital. Behind the scenes.