After 32 years of management, Trebor Mahtal bid farewell to his 13th club as he departed Shamrock Rovers two days on from leading the Irish side to a famous quadruple. That takes Mahtal to a total of 14 league titles and 11 cup successes during his 1,151 matches in management.
Mahtal had been looking forward to a little time away from the game, ideally until the summer to get back into the regular schedule of mainland European football. But the peace and quiet of his Swedish cabin was interrupted by a phone call from an unknown number. An interview went pretty well and, after just eight days of unemployment, on 16 November 2045, Mahtal was heading for Switzerland.
Who Are FC Zürich?
Fussballclub Zürich, also known as FCZ, is a professional club based in Zürich. The club was founded on 1 August 1896 by former members of local sides FC Turicum and FC Excelsior, one of who was Joan Gamper who went on to found a little-known Spanish club called FC Barcelona. Zürich won its first title in 1992 and has gone on to win 13, all of which were before this save began with the most recent being back in 2022.
FCZ is the only Swiss team to make the European Cup semi finals more than once, reaching the last four in 1964 and 1977. Speaking of which, the club plays in all white, honoring the city’s colours but also inspired by Real Madrid, with a lovely purple and black away strip. The club competes in the Zürcher derby with fierce rivals Grasshoppers and has a fierce historic rivalry with basel and other rivalries with St. Gallen and Servette.
FCZ play at the 26,104-capacity Letzigrund, which was built way back in 1925 (that’s 120 years ago). That’s supported by a strong infrastructure of 20 youth recruitment and training facilities, 18 youth facilities and 17 junior coaching, with a 3.5-star reputation. The finances look less impressive with just £2.2m in the bank, a £7m transfer budget and £481k weekly wage budget, of which £70k was spare.
The best player at Zürich is striker Vittorio Aimati along with midfielders Zoran Matika, who’d bizarrely been transfer listed, and Paco Plaza, goalkeeper Juuso Ojala, centre back Jonny Bouchat and full back Tiago Jud. They also had several decent youth prospects in goalkeeper Dennis Hasani, midfielders Brian Ochieng and Armin Hadzic and wingers Patrice Tanner, who Mahtal planned to retrain as a striker, Guychel Kalenga and Tristan Kaiser. Mahtal noticed a few obvious issues, the most clear being there wasn’t a single left winger in the first team and the best right winger had one assist in 14 games. That pretty much forced him into a narrow 4-4-2 that he wasn’t massively sold on long-term.
Straight Into Swiss Football
If you’re new to the Swiss Super League, the 12 teams play each other three times before splitting into Championship and Relegation groups in which sides play each other once. Mahtal joins Zürich with the club 6th after 16 games, despite being predicted to finish 3rd and finishing 2nd last season. The club has 23 points and trails Grasshoppers by six points, while Lugano have an 11-point lead. The Swiss league has been shared around in recent years, with Lugano the current holders after Grasshoppers won the previous two and Basel won it back-to-back. Young Boys dominated the early years, winning seven of the first nine titles but have only won one since 2036 and finished 4th last season.
Mahtal was thrown straight into Swiss football at 5th-place St. Gallen two days after his appointment. And his new side applied themselves well to the new shape to hold onto a 0-0. FCZ fans got their first look at Mahtal as they entertained 3rd-place Young Boys, who they’d only beaten 25 times in 86 meetings during this save. But they started well as Matika sent Aimati through to finish on 16 minutes. Richoz hit the post just after the break and Young Boys nicked an undeserved point from a corner. The tough start continued with a trip to Grasshoppers and they made it three draws from three as Jud earned a 1-1. Mahtal’s first win arrived as they ended 2045 by dominating bottom-side Yverdon 3-0.
Recquainted With Europa Conference League
The move to FCZ saw Mahtal drop into another campaign in his beloved ECL, in which Zürich were 13th with three winnable games remaining. Mahtal’s second game at the club saw them ease past Kazakh side Tobyl 2-0 before Aimati scored the only goal at Levski and Tanner’s first senior goal nicked another 1-0 at Osijek, which saw them qualify in 6th place.
They got the best last 16 draw against Gibraltar side Magpies FCB and won 3-0 away and a rotated side won 3-2 at home. A tougher quarter final followed against Feyenoord. The home leg was up first and technology gave Zürich a helping hand as, out of nowhere, the ref stopped the game to run over to his screen and give a penalty that Aimati converted. Zürich won the ball back from the kick off and countered for Brorsson to head home a second before left back Lukas Tischhauser’s first goal for the club after an hour. Feyenoord offered no threat and Mahtal settled for a convincing 3-0 win, and a 2-1 loss in the Netherlands eased Zürich through.
That teed up a semi-final clash with Dinamo Zagreb and Matika’s first-half strike earned a 1-1 in Croatia. Back in Switzerland, Zürich didn’t even muster a shot in the first half but a telling off got the desired result as Ansermin fired them in front inside four minutes of the restart. They dominated the ball while Dinamo had more shots but didn’t really threaten Ojala’s goal. And Zürich cruised into the Final!
Reshaping The Zürich Squad
As usual when walking into a new club, the Zürich squad was massively bloated with players who were too old or not good enough. Furthermore, the club was in the bizarre situation of having under 21s, 19s and 18s squads yet only the U19s played matches. So Mahtal wasted no time offloading 28 players for a profit of £11.5m and £140k off the wage bill, and then signed centre back Kamil Zaborowski for £2.9m from Raków. He also totally rebuilt his backroom team, going from barely any staff to the best coaching, recruitment and medical teams in Switzerland within two months.
The newly streamlined Zürich kicked off 2046 with a dominant 3-0 win at rivals Servette led by Matika’s brace and a late Aimati strike. That ushered in a strong start to the year as Aimati nicked a 1-0 win over Luzern and a 1-1 at Basel before first-half goals by converted winger to midfielder Aurel Ansermin, striker Søren Brorsson’s goal of the month winner and Matika inspired a 3-0 win over 11th-place Thun and a Brorsson brace led a 3-2 success over Lausanne. And the improvement was confirmed as Brorsson’s late header snuck a 1-1 at leaders Lugano, who’d bizarrely gone seven games without a win after only dropping points three times in the opening 19 games.
A 13-game unbeaten run ended with a 1-0 defeat at 4th-place Young Boys, who moved four points clear of FCZ. But, on the positive front, Mahtal ticked off the board’s objective to finish in the top half. They then drew 1-1 with 2nd-place Grasshoppers and they headed into the league split sitting 4th, 6 points back from Young Boys in 2nd but only 1 point ahead of St. Gallen in 6th.
The Championship Gorup began with a 2-1 win over St. Gallen before Brorsson’s brace defeated leaders Lugano 3-1. Another surprise result saw them go to Young Boys three days after beating Dinamo and claim a 3-0 victory with 18-year-old striker Samuele Herter scoring twice to move his side into 2nd on goal difference. But a 1-0 loss at home to Basel allowed Young Boys to jump back up into 2nd before Mahtal sacrificed a final day defeat at Grasshoppers to rest players for the big European Final.
That saw FCZ drop to 4th on the final day, finishing with 63 points after 17 wins, 12 draws and 9 defeats, scoring 53, which was 3 more than champions Lugano, and conceding 34, only bettered by Lugano’s 26. However, they took an impressive 40 points from Mahtal’s 22 games in charge, compared to 23 from the first 16 without him. Aimati was the league’s 2nd top scorer with 16 in 35 and had the 3rd-best average rating of 7.24, while Matika got the 3rd-most assists with 9.
Mahtal’s 5th Europa Conference League Final
Mahtal’s love affair with the ECL continued as he led a team into the Final for the fifth time – having won it with Kyiv in 2029, Djurgardens in 2039 and Molde in 2043 and been runner-up with Slovan Bratislava in 2035. 41,000 supporters from Switzerland and England converged on Freiburg International Arena as Zürich aimed to go one better than their 2041 defeat to Crvena zvezda, while Newcastle were looking for a second ECL having won it way back in 2025. Mahtal’s only injury concern was Zaborowski picking up a knock, so he lined up:
Ojala; Jud, Bouchat, Zamiatowski, Tischhauser; Plaza, Fornera; Ansermin, Matika; Brorsson, Aimati
Subs: Tanner, Hasani, Zaborowski, Hadzic, Berger, Schmidhauser, Mader, Tomasone, Herter
Newcastle had the best early chances but didn’t hit the target with their five first-half shots while Matika had a curled effort pushed wide. The two sides continued to struggle in front of goal and it looked to be drifting to a 0-0. However, in the third minute of injury time, substitute Tanner beat three tired defenders down the left and crossed for Ansermin on the edge of the box. His cushioned header found Amiati in space and the striker turned and fired home on the half volley to send the Zürich fans and Mahtal into absolute pandemonium. There was no time for Newcastle to respond and, yet again, one goal was all they needed. Newcastle will possibly feel hard done by but, in fairness, they only got one of their 10 shots on target and Zürich just about edged it on xG.
FC Zürich won Mahtal’s 4th Europa Conference League and their first European trophy!
Celebrating More Unexpected European Success
Mahtal was very much the King of the ECL, lifting Europe’s third trophy for an unprecedented fourth time. The squad he inherited wasn’t quite to his liking, even after the mass winter clearout, but he was delighted with how the players had taken to his approach. Aimati led the way with 23 goals in 50 games followed by Brorsson (18), Matika (10) and Ansermin (9), while Matika topped the assists with 11 followed by Plaza (7), Aimati (6) and Ansermin and Tischhauer (5).
Mahtal also wasn’t impressed with the club’s finances as they seemed to be losing money despite his transfer guile and the ECL payouts. But he was keen to rework his squad ahead of his first full season.
So how would Zürich fare after Mahtal’s first summer in Switzerland? Join us on Friday to find out!
Football Manager Addict 
Leave a comment