Grasshopper Club Zurich are the most successful team in Swiss football, with 27 league titles to their name — seven more than second-placed FC Basel.
They are also without a title win since 2003, with this past season marking an unfortunate two-decade span without a triumph in the league.
The Zürich-based club even spent a couple of seasons in the second tier not so long ago — the 2019/20 and 2020/21 campaigns — during which they competed with a certain SC Kriens under the tutelage of one Bruno Berner.
The former left-back — who played in the Swiss Super League with both Grasshopper and FC Basel, the EPL with Blackburn Rovers, EFL Championship with Leicester City and German Bundesliga with SC Freiburg during a reasonably successful playing career that saw him win two Super Leagues, one EFL League One, one Swiss Cup and one 2.
Bundesliga — helped Kriens to reach the second tier in 2017/18.
After this, as detailed in a Sky Sports report and interview looking at the coach who managed part-time players in a full-time league, there was a lack of significant investment in the playing squad.
As a result, he was taking players with day jobs off on weekend trips to compete with the likes of Grasshopper — a team packed with relative superstars in comparison to Kriens.
Still, Berner kept Kriens in the second tier for three straight seasons before he departed for the Swiss U19s, and the team of part-timers would be relegated the following campaign.
Theres a famous quote from ex-FC Bayern boss Julian Nagelsmann:
30% of coaching is tactics, 70% social competence… Every player is motivated by different things and needs to be addressed accordingly.
Berner praised the impact of his time at Kriens on the social competence aspect of his coaching in the aforementioned Sky Sports interview:
You prepare the session, and a few hours before, you have three players texting you that they cannot come in because they have to work longer. What are you going to do? Do you tell them they are out of the team? They are in a job, and you have to accept it. Patience had been a weakness, but I learned from that and became able to adapt very quickly to situations. It was so much easier to manage in a game because it felt like I never knew what was around the corner during the week, either. Dealing with it became normal.
Berners time at Kriens undoubtedly helped prepare him for an opportunity to coach in Switzerlands top tier, which he got last year with Winterthur.
Per Transfermarkt, they were the least-valuable squad in the Super League by some distance.
However, he successfully guided them to safety and will compete with them in the league again this season, though now hes in charge of fallen giant Grasshopper.
The famous Zürich-based club finished seventh last season, just two places ahead of Winterthur.
Theyve currently got the fifth-least valuable squad in Switzerlands top flight, though thats still 1.5x as valuable as Winterthurs current squad value, for reference.
The historical expectation of managing a club like Grasshopper is heavy.
However, with their success falling off over the past two decades and relegation even occurring in very recent times, managing the Zürich outfit is a different prospect from what it once was and will be approached accordingly.
Still, this is the biggest club Berner has managed so far in his coaching career and may provide him with an excellent opportunity to display his skills on an even greater level than he has in the past.
Can the serial overachiever do it again and, perhaps, get Grasshopper competing in the top half of the table or upper end of the table?
What can be expected of the promising 45-year-old coach at Stadion Letzigrund?
This tactical analysis will look at Berners typical tactical approach based on his past clubs, including Winterthur.
Via analysis of his previously used strategies and tactics, well formulate some ideas of what Grasshopper supporters can expect to see from their team this term.
Bruno Berner Tactics In possession
Lets begin by looking at Bruno Berner tactist at Winterthur in possession last season.
They ended the campaign, unsurprisingly, with the lowest possession in the Swiss Super League (41.2%), the fewest shots (8.56 per 90), the lowest xG (34.09), the fewest goals (32) and lowest xG per shot (0.103).
None of this is particularly appealing and nothing Grasshopper will strive for.
However, with a far stronger squad, Grasshopper didnt do much better in many of these areas last season.
They were pretty stylistically similar to Winterthur across the board and performed to a similar level.
They finished the season with the second-lowest possession (46.5%), second-fewest shots (9.58 per 90), third-lowest xG (47.91), fourth-most goals (56) and fifth-highest xG per shot (0.129).
So, an overperformance in front of goal helped Grasshopper massively to finish two places above Winterthur last term.
They were pretty good at generating decent-quality chances but werent generating enough opportunities overall.
Berner will hope to increase their shots per 90 without compromising on xG per shot.
If he can achieve that, it may be possible for Grasshopper to achieve similar goalscoring numbers to last season or even surpass them despite their big xG overperformance in 2022/23.
Last season, Winterthurs right centre-back, Yannick Schmid, played an important role in progressing his team upfield.
He demonstrated good, reliable progressive passing ability, which helped his team to transition to attack or create micro transitions versus an aggressive opposition press, quickly progressing from build-up, through progression and into chance creation in the blink of an eye.
We see an example of Winterthur drawing the oppositions press via some deep possession play, progressing th
