Ice Hockey World Cup
The right coach for the national team: Patrick Fischer did not make many mistakes
Could Patrick Fischer have won the quarter-final against Germany with better training? maybe yes.
Patrick Fisher talks with Joel Fermin (right) and Noah Rudd (left).
When Napoleon is offered an able military commander for promotion to the rank of general, he is said to have asked only one question: “Is the man lucky?” The emperor of the French knew: no matter how much military experience, it does not help if luck is lost at the crucial moment. Patrick Fisher was not to become a general under Napoleon. Because he was not so lucky. She lost to Germany in extra time in the round of 16 of the 2018 Olympics and on penalties in the 2021 World Cup. Final defeat against Sweden in 2018 after a penalty shootout.
In the World Cup quarter-final against Canada 2019, he missed 0.4 seconds from the win and the semi-final. The most important characteristic of a national coach: He must be able to sell the national team. ins and outs. Working in the national team is always voluntary. All talk of the national duty to serve in the national team remains empty if the national coach does not understand how to convince the players of his cause. Patrick Fischer is a better seller for the national team even than Ralph Krueger. However, he makes up for his weakness in training to a large extent. The reason may be that he is a poet, a thinker, a psychiatrist, an esoteric, a not enough tyrannical, a cold-blooded leader in extreme situations.
Auxiliaries must be replaced
But it was not the national coach who failed in this World Cup. His three assistants failed. Tommy Alblin should have seen that Jonas Seigenthaler wasn’t on the ice in the last minute against Germany. But he is an excellent tactics teacher and his position is out of the question. Christian Wohlwind is definitely good for the mood and for regularly setting some records in the tiled fireplace of emotions. But he, too, was a gang general with no fortune like his miserable failure with HC Davos in the previous playoffs against SCB and no help in tough situations. Marco Bayer, the under-20 coach, has not lost anything in national relations. Neither a gang general, nor a tactician, nor a psychiatrist. It brings zero added value. Patrick Fischer’s problem can be solved in a few simple steps: by appointing assistants in place of Wohlwend and Bayer to make up for his weakness. However, the question is whether federation sports director Lars Whipple is the right man for this delicate task. The shoes of his predecessor Raeto Raffainer are still too big for him.
Doubts are emerging about assistant coaches Christian Follwind (left) and Marco Bayer (right).
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