Last December, in a Swiss Super League match between Young Boys Bern and FC Sion, midfielder Raphael Nuzzolo lunged in for a tackle on Xavier Margairaz — one of Sion’s top goalscorers — and brought his opponent to the ground with a challenge from behind.
Not surprisingly, the Sion players swarmed referee Nikalaj Hänni in protest, and just to make sure the message was sent, Gennaro Gattuso grabbed Hänni’s yellow card and presented it to Nuzzolo, himself.
It didn’t much matter, as 12 minutes later Nuzzolo scored a stoppage-time insurance marker, but Gattuso’s actions certainly caught the eye of oddball Sion owner Christian Constantin, who in the last week of February appointed the Italian as manager of the Valais club.
In a way, Constantin and Gattuso are a match made in heaven.
The former is an eccentric architect (and also an ex-goalkeeper, which explains a lot) famous for hiring and firing coaches and thumbing his nose at the authorities. In February 2008 Constantin signed Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadry, even though the player’s former club, Al Ahly, held that the transaction was illegal. Despite incurring a transfer ban as a result he continued to acquire players — actions that resulted in the club’s expulsion from the Europa League last season.
Since purchasing the club in 2003, Constantin has been through 26 managers, and during the 2008-09 season in which he sacked two of them, he twice took charge of the team, himself.
The current campaign has seen four managers axed — the fourth, Spaniard Victor Muñoz, pink-slipped during a 4-0 defeat to Thun on Feb. 24. The next day Sion appointed Gattuso player-manager, and two days later the 35-year-old World Cup winner led his side to a 2-0 win away to Lausanne in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Cup. He made all three changes from the pitch, even substituting himself with four minutes left in regulation.
At Gattuso’s disposal is a squad with some ability, although the haphazard manner of its assembly has made it wildly unpredictable. Since winning promotion in 2006 following a successful playoff with Neuchâtel Xamax, Sion have finished third, seventh, eighth, fifth, fourth and ninth. They have never managed anything resembling consistency in the league and last spring only avoided relegation after beating Arau 3-1 over two legs.
Two weeks later they signed Gattuso on a free transfer from AC Milan, and in July former Rangers striker Kyle Lafferty was also snapped up on a free. The trio of Constantin’s impact signings was completed when Tunisian playmaker Oussama Darragi — the 2011 Africa-based Player of the Year — was acquired from Espérance. In January, one-time Manchester City midfielder Gelson Fernandes was added via loan from Sporting Lisbon.
Gattuso’s task between now and the end of the season in June will be to ensure Sion do not drop lower than fourth in the table, which is where it sits at the moment, and take a serious run at the cup. They’ll host reigning Swiss League champions Basel in the semifinals next month and, with a bit of luck, could cut into the 10-point cushion that leaders Grasshopper have on them after 22 rounds.
And who knows? Gattuso might even get to see out the campaign as player-manager. If so, he would become the first Sion boss to have control of the team for more than three months since Bernard Challandes more than two years ago.
One can only hope it happens. The Constantin-Gattuso combination oozes entertainment value, and there will surely be a few more talking points to come out of it before its inevitable implosion.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter