Promotion has a way of changing a club’s rhythm. At Chur, it has done something more profound: it has accelerated an identity that had been quietly forming under Iñaki Arriola and his newly assembled recruitment team. The move into the fourth tier has not brought reckless spending, ego, or delusion, but a tightening of principles and a sharpening of processes. In a league where travel costs alone can sink a part-time club, Chur have doubled down on sustainability: wages capped, recruitment disciplined, and every signing vetted not just for talent but for alignment with a footballing ideology that is no longer just whispered inside the training ground – it is becoming the club’s calling card.

Those on the outside speak often and confidently about a “transfer committee,” as if the club has suddenly transformed into a miniature version of the modern superclub model. The truth, as always, is more nuanced. Arriola leads, of course – he is the one who shapes the list, identifies the profiles, and filters the types of players who fit the Basque-influenced principles he wants embedded across every age group. But once that filtered list is set, the work largely passes to his backroom staff: to the scouts who travel across cantons by rail, the analysts who dig into regional leagues often ignored by bigger clubs, and the contacts – in Spain, in central Switzerland, in the Alpine youth networks – who understand exactly the calibre Chur can realistically attract. Arriola provides the blueprint; the recruitment team builds the structure around it.

The club’s recent success has done the rest. Promotion has raised Chur’s reputation just enough to make conversations possible that were once unthinkable. Players from Basel, Bern, Valencia, Zamora – players who would never previously have looked twice at a project in Graubünden – are suddenly listening. Not because of money, which remains modest, but because of what is being built: a coherent vision, a clear style, a club that is small but sharply defined, a place where ambitious young players can play real minutes and be coached with rare attention. Chur is not competing financially; it is competing philosophically.

And this summer’s arrivals reflect exactly that. Each signing is a story of alignment rather than opportunism, of players drawn not only by necessity but by belief in what this club is becoming.

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Sonny Henchoz is perhaps the most surprising arrival in the current Chur squad, not for his quality but for the weight of the name he carries. As the son of former Liverpool defender Stefan Henchoz, he has grown up under a shadow that can both open doors and complicate every step. He arrives in Chur not with the swagger of a big signing, but with the quiet assurance of a young man who has already lived a full footballing education. At just 22, the Neuchâtel-born defender has clocked up 64 senior appearances and a stint at Luzern that sharpened him into a composed, modern centre-half. There is a tranquillity about Henchoz’s game – a right-footer who passes cleanly, tackles with balance rather than panic, and never seems in a rush even when the game around him begins to wobble. Chur have signed him to be a Star Player, but he doesn’t behave like one; instead, he slots seamlessly into the rhythms of the squad, media-friendly, approachable, and already speaking like someone who intends to put roots down in the region. Arriola values defenders who can step into midfield, and Henchoz, with his comfort at DM, looks tailor-made for those 3-2-5 transition structures. If Chur’s rebuild has a heartbeat, it might already be his.

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The Spanish influence at the club becomes immediately visible when looking at Jesús Segura, the 18-year-old from Zamora whose recruitment is a direct product of the Javi Martínez–Iñaki Arriola connection. Martínez’s presence on staff has opened channels deep into regional youth networks across Spain, and combined with Arriola’s Basque contacts, Chur has become an unexpected landing point for Spanish youngsters who would otherwise be swallowed by the sheer volume of players at Segunda B and Tercera level. At just eighteen years old, left-footed, and with a record of 12 goals in 58 senior appearances in Spain, Jesús Segura arrives from Zamora carrying the improbable blend of raw talent and real experience. Castilla y León might feel a world away from Graubünden, but Segura plays like someone who adapts easily – level-headed, honest, unaffected by the noise around him. He offers Arriola something Chur have lacked: a centre-forward who can both link play and finish moves, a striker who is still mouldable but already understands the rhythms of senior football. At €230 per week he is hardly a luxury item, yet there is something undeniably glamorous about watching a teenager with a cultured left foot drop into small spaces and roll defenders twice his age. Chur haven’t signed a finished product. They’ve signed possibility – and if Arriola can sculpt him, Segura may become the spearhead of this new era.

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He is not the only arrival from foreign shores, for there is also David Sellés. Born in Comunidad Valenciana, shaped by Castellón, and now finding a new home in the mountains, Sellés plays with the worldliness of someone who has seen football from many angles. His path from Castellón to Chur was influenced less by the Basque connection and more by Martínez’s ties to the Valencian footballing community. Sellés is a typical product of that region: technically composed, a smooth mover, and comfortable stepping into midfield to support possession.  A left-footed defender, he combines athleticism with a cultured cross, making him a natural fit for Arriola’s asymmetric build-up patterns. He is nominally a centre-back but just as comfortable sliding into the left channel when the system shifts into a temporary back three. Balanced, media-friendly, and no-nonsense in the tackle, Sellés feels like the type of stabilising signing quietly essential for a squad built on tight margins and hard graft. He may not draw headlines, but he will likely keep others in them.

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 Goalkeepers often carry a certain stoicism, but Simon Caillet radiates something different: a calmness that borders on indifference to pressure. Basel’s academy has long been a breeding ground for disciplined, technically secure keepers, and Caillet is no exception. Basel’s academy is one of the most relentlessly competitive in the country, constantly producing goalkeepers who hover just below first-team level. Many of them, like Caillet, need a platform to show maturity rather than just raw talent. Chur, accessible by a direct rail route yet far enough to operate outside the orbit of Basel’s talent traffic, gives him that space. At 20 years old he already feels like a proper No.1, commanding in his area and unfazed by the tactical demands Arriola places on his goalkeepers – playing out under pressure, inviting the first line of the press, and distributing sharply into the double pivot. Despite his youth, he behaves like someone who expects to play, who expects to grow, and who expects to carry responsibility. He’s been named Chur’s First-Choice Goalkeeper, and the dressing room already seems to treat him as such. Basel may wonder whether they let one slip away; Chur will be very glad they were the ones waiting to catch him.

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Every summer window needs at least one signing that feels like an investment in identity. For Chur, Evan Gindrat is exactly that. Born in Bern and moulded by Young Boys’ competitive academy, the 19-year-old arrives with a reputation for being steady, structured, and remarkably composed for his age. Young defenders from Bern often find themselves lost in the backlog behind the club’s conveyor belt of talent, and a move across the country offers the chance to play real senior minutes while still staying within a professional development environment Right-footed, positionally intelligent, and capable of playing either as a centre-back or a holding midfielder, he embodies the tactical versatility Arriola craves. Gindrat isn’t flashy – his highlights are small things: smart body shape, clean defensive contacts, disciplined passing. But beneath that quiet exterior lies a player who reads danger quicker than those around him, and who relishes the defensive grind that often goes unnoticed in this league. Media-friendly and unruffled, he seems the type who would happily play 90 minutes in sideways rain and say nothing more in the post-match interview than “I just did my job.” For a rebuilding Chur, that’s gold.

Together, these players reflect a recruitment strategy that is part opportunistic, part geographic, and part philosophically driven by Arriola’s Basque-inspired demands. There is a growing Spanish thread running through the squad now, woven carefully rather than hastily, but it rests atop a solid Swiss core – exactly what a club now in the 4th tier must build if it wants to grow sustainably rather than erratically.