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BLICK: Mr. Koller, congratulations! Do you feel like 60?
Marcel Koller: Sometimes I do … Last time I lifted a box and now I have a strain in my back. And my left knee is already badly damaged, I am walking from bone to bone. When I go hiking in the mountains, I usually end up sitting in the stream. Then it hisses, it’s so hot … (laughs) It was fun a year ago in the hospital after my mountain bike accident when I broke my shoulder.
Because fun
I was x-rayed in a wheelchair, with a fractured pubic bone and a broken shoulder. Then the doctor came and after the x-ray he said, “Jesus God, your knees!” I told him, “Take it easy, it’s an old story. Now my shoulder hurts.”
You were seriously injured in the leg when you were 19.
It was the junior A final at the tourbillon in Sion. I turned around and it broke. The hamstring was completely torn. The trainer lifted me up, the lower leg hung at a right angle like a doll. I almost jumped to the moon in pain. There was no doctor there, nothing. The gardener broke two sticks from a tree and fixed my leg.
And then you quickly went to the hospital.
No. We got off with my parents, I sat in the back seat and stretched out my leg. We went to Zurich. Since then I have suffered. Even when my shin and fibula broke in Aarau’s match against the GC, I still remember lying in the locker room and the whole break whimpered like a wounded dog. I just wanted the morphine to be redeemed. A first injection in the cabin didn’t help, the one in the hospital after a trip with a blue light did. Then I tore my Achilles tendon twice – I mean, I’m in pain.
At 60, you inevitably lost some loved ones. How did you deal with it?
It was particularly steep with my father. He was a big football fan and very proud of me and my brother, who also played football in Aarau and then, at 23, gambled on work and family. My dad had a heart attack that night in 1999. And it was like he felt it. The night before he hugged my mother and said that luckily she would go well with all the friends in the house. When my mother told me this, I got goosebumps, it was almost mystical. And of course incredibly sad.
Later his mother went mad. What was it like for you as a relative?
This is substantial. At one point I noticed that he asked us something, we said something and after five or ten seconds he asked the same thing again. We, my brothers and I, have noticed over the months that something was wrong. And it didn’t get any better. He could still live at home because my sister was always around. But she retreated more and more. At some point comes the decision that a home would be better for them. It was incredibly tough as a family
Did he still recognize you?
Family members, yes. Otherwise people no longer. He was sad. You sit in the house and wait until it’s over. Six or seven years passed with her before she was allowed to go.
Are you afraid of getting dementia on your own?
No, I generally don’t live with fear. If it has to be, it has to be. I try to live in the here and now. To enjoy every day and to make the most of every day. So I draw a lot from the past for today.
From your childhood in Zurich-Schwamendingen?
We were always out. They made ice fields, built soap boxes, filled the forest, dug caves, built huts or arrows, played with Indians and cowboys. Can’t wait to do it with my grandchildren.
What role did your beliefs play?
I grew up a Catholic, so you had to go to church with your grandfather. Then the whole family sat down and ate a roast. Look forward to the refined sauce all week.
«I’m not in negotiations, I don’t know exactly what it is. But David is a top player, an honest person for whom respect is very important. Already at 19 or 20 he had a great personality which also included funny and silly sayings. But he is also a rascal and can be decisive. In the team, when he tells his colleagues that it won’t work that way. Or sometimes he complained to the coach. Mostly it was about the result. We often played in Vienna, of the 23 players around 15, 16 were mercenaries, they wanted to meet their family and sometimes I had to make them understand that we are here for football. But we have always found good solutions “.
It’s been two and a half months since you split from FC Basel. What have you done since then?
In the beginning I turned off cycling and hiking. We like mountains, nature, tranquility. But after two years in Basel I wasn’t empty or anything.
Just before leaving, you said: “For what we have had to endure, we should get a medal.” What did you mean by this?
Hear every day what was happening in the club. You try to isolate yourself and the team. An incredible number of people in Basel want to exert external influence. I knew from Cologne that many former internationals want to stand out again and again. Everyone tries to find a job, to be part of the FCB, to express themselves publicly. The problem is: everyone thinks only of themselves – this makes it so difficult. But there were also two years in which I was able to learn a lot. There were difficult times, but something developed afterwards.
Many people have left. Is there calmer in the club now?
I think so. Transfers were also good. I wanted Pajtim Kasami twice, now he is here. I also think we have prepared a lot with the guys, who are now even more active. It takes time to introduce them. They took their first steps with us, now with Ciri Sforza the next.
Was it the hardest station of your career?
Hard. Because there is a gap between requests and reality. FC Basel are no longer the team they were four or five years ago.
When you look at your life, what did you do right and what did you do wrong?
My goal was to become a footballer. I succeeded and despite all the injuries I fought again and again. I had a will, which went through my life. Maybe it was bad that he never went abroad. Once an offer came from Mallorca, but I had just renewed it at the GC. And what I did very well: I have been with my wife for 20 years and I also have two wonderful children from my first marriage, who gave me four grandchildren.
You still have five years before AHV. Until when do you want to work?
As long as I enjoy it. And I’m still very happy.
Do you prefer club football or the national team?
Both are possible, you just have to adapt.
But would you prefer an armchair job as a national team manager in the Maldives or something with a lot of pressure?
Something with pressure. The results are important to me. I want to win.
Koller was born on November 11, 1960 in Zurich. His father was a gardener, his mother a seamstress. “He cut the trousers for half the quarters for five francs. I always told her to take more because she worked day and night, but she didn’t want to upset anyone, “says Koller.
As a child he played for FC Schwamendingen before joining GC when he was 12. There he became a legend of the club, he made 434 matches for the record champions. There were also 55 international matches for the national team.
He started as a manager at FC Wil at the age of 37, then led St. Gallen to their first world title in 96 years in 2000. His other stations were GC, Cologne and Bochum before becoming the national team manager. Austrian. Under him, the Austrians qualified for the 2016 European Championship. In 2018 he conquered FC Basel and won a cup.
Koller is the father of two children, the grandfather of four and is married to Gisela.
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