The price of a sad season: The GC men are in the relegation battle without a plan and resilience

The walk from the locker room to the team bus can be long and arduous. For the GC players, it was especially arduous shortly before midnight on Saturday, following their 2-1 loss to FC Sion. A win would have avoided direct relegation.

As it is, the Zurich club sits second to last in the table, level on points with Yverdon and one point behind Winterthur. However, the record champions have a significantly better goal difference than their direct rivals. Anything is still possible for GC in their home game against FC St. Gallen on Thursday: relegation, play-offs, or survival.

One GC player after another crept wordlessly through the long corridor of the Stade de Tourbillon. With a recovery meal in hand, most hid in their hoodies and dragged themselves away. Amir Abrashi, too, didn't want to talk anymore. During the mandatory TV interviews, the GC captain had said that "they had given away the two goals too easily" and that "the disappointment was enormous." But they had to keep going, "we will fight until the last minute." After that, the last of his strength drained from him.

The GC coach had more energy after taking over half an hour to calm down. When Tomas Oral stepped in front of the four media representatives from German-speaking Switzerland, his anger was far from over. After the final whistle, he was held back by his player Pascal Schürpf because he had rushed straight at referee Luca Piccolo to give him a piece of his mind. In the end, Oral said: "I don't want to start bashing the referee." That's what coaches always say after they've just launched into a referee-bashing rant.

An unpunished foul on Nikolas Muci after halftime was said to be the crucial moment, and before Imourane Hassane's sending off, there was unpunished unsportsmanlike conduct against GC, and the referee was said to have been far too insistent. There was a lot of bitterness about situations that could be interpreted either way. There were no blatant errors by the referee, of which there have been a few this season.

Oral was not entirely unjustified in complaining about the changed situation immediately before the match. Because Winterthur had snatched a draw from Yverdon at the Schützenwiese almost at the last second, FC Sion was already safe before kickoff. Perhaps the league officials will come up with the idea of ​​not having the last-round matches played at the same time next season and making the schedule more fair. Whether the different scheduling actually had an impact on the GC match is speculation, however.

It's no speculation that Oral's team hadn't done enough and lacked a plan for how to tackle the challenge. That didn't concern the GC coach. "Work out the frustration, recover, and give it our all again," he said of his plan for the many hours until next Thursday.

Grasshoppers don't have to remain in misery without hope. Their performance in Valais wasn't as dismal as, for example, their 0-3 derby against FC Zurich or their previous performances against Winterthur. But the energy boost they had gained in their 5-0 win against Yverdon quickly fizzled out in the Tourbillon.

Oral's team's performance reflected a season in which no GC player made any progress. The team was unable to react to the opponent's tactical changes or mount the kind of resistance that would have been necessary given Benjamin Kololli's goals in three minutes.

GC remains a collection of players who haven't coalesced into a close-knit unit, unlike, for example, FC Winterthur. The dismissal of the sporting director, the dismissal of the goalkeeping coach, and the demotion of a key player are evidence of various deficiencies. The team's struggle to avoid relegation is no coincidence.

New sporting director Alain Sutter must have recognized this in his two weeks on the job. But the GC hopeful kept it to himself during these delicate moments: "I believe in the team; it's intact, there are no cliques, they'll give it their all again. Everyone knows we have to win this cup match against St. Gallen." On Thursday, they face Sutter's last employer, of all teams.

Sutter was the only GC representative who radiated calm and composure after the 1-2 defeat. With his experience and the necessary detachment, he used the text modules available in such difficult moments.

He probably would have preferred a different starting point for his work. In the first week of June, he will meet with representatives of the GC owners in Los Angeles to discuss the record champions' future plans. By then, it will have been clarified which coach, which players, and how much financial investment GC will have for the next season. Either in the Super League or in the Challenge League, in the darkness of the second division.