The 2022/23 Challenge League season, which begins on Friday, will not be a season like any other. Two direct promotions in the elite and a possible 3rd through a play-off against the last of the Super League indeed whet many appetites.
The most voracious will be Lausanne-Sport. The relegated learned the lessons of a calamitous failure. After an unfortunate French parenthesis personified by coach Alain Casanova and sports director Souleymane Cissé, the Tuilière club put its destiny in the hands of Ludovic Magnin. For his first adventure in French-speaking Switzerland, in the club which did not want him as a player, the former coach of FC Zurich and Altach has no room for error.
Lausanne must appear next summer in the new Super League at 12. Even if for only 19 years Saint-Gall, in 2012, and Zurich, in 2017, went up immediately, everything pleads in favor of LS: the weight of its owner Ineos, the aura of the coach and a successful transfer campaign with in particular the return of Olivier Custodio and the arrival of Gianluca Gaudino.
Two featherless dolphins
Preceded on the wire by Winterthur in the spring, Aarau and Schaffhausen will find it difficult to restart the machine. The 2 clubs had to let go of their best elements.
The most serious threat to LS will come from Thun and Neuchâtel Xamax. In the Oberland, the return of Mauro Lustrinelli brings hope. The Ticino would not have left the Swiss U21 team if he had not obtained guarantees on his workforce.
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24 French-speaking derbies on display
With Yverdon-Stade Lausanne-Ouchy, the championship will open on Friday with the first of the 24 derbies in Romandie on display this season. It is difficult to locate these 2 teams in the chessboard. It’s up to new coaches Marco Schällibaum and Anthony Braizat to trigger a dynamic from the outset to arouse a certain enthusiasm.
Who will be relegated?
With no one automatically relegated, but with the last in the standings who will be called upon to save his place in a play-off against 3rd in the Promotion League, Yverdon and Stade Lausanne-Ouchy seem to be safe from a bad surprise. However, it will be necessary to designate a last of the class next spring. David Sesa’s newly promoted Bellinzona? Or Wil who only won one of his last 9 matches last season?