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FCZ President Ancillo Canepa mourns Kooki: The shepherd died in November.
Matthew Dubachreporter sports
Blick: A year ago, the FCZ leader was, you said at Christmas: “We don’t need any gifts, 40 points are enough gifts.” Now Zurich is last. So did you have to go back and find a gift for Heliane?
Ancillo Canepa: We gave each other a gift. Nyki is our newest addition to the family. This is an eight-week-old puppy that brings us and our dog Chilla great joy.
You’re talking about the cute little dog that’s just wet the office floor behind you?
Oh, I have to clean that up quickly. You see, Heliane and I are quite challenged until Nyki is out of the boorish age. It’s a 24/7 job right now. She also distracts us from the fact that Kooki sadly passed away in November.
Dog Kooki achieved cult status as the most famous dog in the league.
She would have turned 14 in January. I’m sure other dog owners understand how it feels when you have to let your dog go. Even now, emotions still come up when I think of Kooki. The relationship with your own dog is extremely close. I rode thousands of kilometers through the woods with her on my bike, and Heliane took her to countless courses. However, after a disc operation two years ago, Kooki found it more and more difficult to stand up and move on his own. We have done everything to give her a pain-free life. But in the end you could tell by her eyes that she wanted to leave. We had to overcome a lot to fulfill her wish.
Did you bury Kooki?
We’ll get the urn with her ashes. And I planted a two meter high red beech in the garden as a reminder. It’s very emotional. In her honor, we have also agreed to be a “dog ambassador” for the Swiss Cynological Society for the next two years.
The FCZ year was just as emotional. From champion to bottom!
If you just compare the tables, it leaves you stunned. I don’t want to make excuses, but there are reasons for it. Because of the European Cup, we had twelve English weeks, so regular training was no longer possible. For many players, this physical and mental strain was new. After all, our games in the European Cup, with the exception of the two against Eindhoven, weren’t that bad. We played at eye level twice against the big arsenal.
But Zurich missed the Champions League. Will such a chance ever come again?
It remains a dream. Whether it is feasible is another matter. But it almost brings me to tears when I see that we could have qualified for a group with Bayern, Inter and Barcelona. More would have been possible against Karabakh. And Pilsen prevailed in qualifying against Karabakh. We certainly would have had a chance against Pilsen.
Will Zurich get rid of the relegation worries in the new year without the double burden?
That is the hope and also the expectation. We just have to get away from the end of the table. I can’t look at the table upside down every day to calm my nerves!
Will coach Bo Henriksen get another Christmas present in the form of a striker?
We are in the squad planning, also for the next season. But nothing is ready to say yet.
Henriksen is already the fourth FCZ coach in 2022.
The fourth?
Breitenreiter, Foda, interim coach Colatrella and the Dane.
OK, right. I don’t want to say much more about Foda. Just this much: he is basically a very good and hard-working coach, but it just didn’t fit.
What hardly anyone knows: Foda’s assistant coach Imre Szabics continued to work at FCZ as a U21 coach. Will he stay in 2023?
He had an ongoing contract. It was a good interim solution after U21 coach Colatrella switched to the pros ad interim.
Are you still in contact with master trainer André Breitenreiter?
I met him briefly once when he surprisingly came to one of our home games. Otherwise there was no more contact.
Wasn’t the separation so harmonious after all?
It didn’t end optimally. We only found out the morning before the last league game that he was going to sign a contract with a Bundesliga club. Although we spoke to each other three days before. Tempi passati. And in Bo Henriksen we have found a very good coach again.
Isn’t it a problem that Henriksen only speaks English?
We once had a trainer who insisted on only speaking Zurich German…
… was that Urs Fischer?
Whoever. In any case, four or five players didn’t understand Zurich German. Most of the players in the current squad understand Standard German. But they understand the speeches in English almost better. In addition, Bo understands German perfectly.
2022 is the year of the Zurich Sensations Championship. Your best moment in winning the title?
Of course, the celebration on Helvetiaplatz with well over 10,000 fans was an amazing event. But I also found the boat trip with the trophy on Lake Zurich enormous. We stopped in four places, the euphoria was huge everywhere. Pupils had skipped school for us, or entire classes had come with the teacher. I’ve already celebrated a few championship titles and cup wins with FCZ. But it has never been as emotional as this year.
Why was that?
Probably because the last championship title was 13 years ago and because we became champions out of nowhere. The average number of spectators rose enormously, the curve was always full and away from home there were always thousands. It was amazing. Jersey sales also exploded. Nobody should say that Zurich is not a football city.
However, the shipping should not have gone completely smoothly …
(Laughs.) It was in Mannedorf. It had started to rain, the players were sent back to the ship. But there were still dozens of fans, I wanted to fulfill everyone’s selfie and autograph requests. Then I suddenly heard the horn blow and the ship actually cast off. Without me! They just had to turn back to collect me like a shipwrecked man.
Have you already been to the new Zurich ice hockey temple?
I had an invitation for the opening game, but I couldn’t. It’s sensational what the ZSC Lions have achieved, I look at it with envy. ZSC used to have to switch to Rapperswil for the Champions League, just as we had to switch to St. Gallen for two European Cup games this year. This caused us financial damage of almost 3 million Swiss francs. That’s because of the additional costs and because we could have sold a lot more tickets against opponents like Arsenal in the Letzigrund.
The waiting continues at the football stadium.
Unfortunately, we are dealing with arbitrary objections. Although these do not stand a chance, they are still taken to the Federal Supreme Court, which costs us a lot of time and money. This objection culture in Switzerland no longer has anything to do with democracy. But I’m 100 percent sure that the football stadium will come.
Will you still be FCZ President at the opening?
I hope so (laughs).
Credit Suisse Super League
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