The results have begun to sit heavier with me than I would like to admit. Breitenrain at home ended in a draw that felt like a defeat. Baden followed, another home match, another moment where the margins turned against us, ending in defeat. Cham offered no relief, a stalemate that drained rather than steadied us. Rotkreuz came next, another loss at Obere Au, and then Delémont away, where we fought but came back empty-handed once more. No wins in five. Writing it down does not soften the truth. I heard the voices, the noises, the doubts. The form is poor, and with it the quiet fear that promotion, once within reach, is beginning to slip from our grasp. Whether or not that will mean the end of my time here, I do not know, but I know that I cannot sit in that headspace for the remainder of the season.

Against that backdrop, we travelled to Zürich for the quarter-final of the Schweizer Cup, a game that felt outsized in every possible way. Letzigrund is not a stadium that allows you to hide. Fifteen thousand home supporters filled the space with noise and expectation, roaring on a Zürich side sitting rock bottom of the Super League yet still carrying all the muscle of a fully professional outfit. For us, this was the biggest match in the club’s history. Three rounds navigated, each one earned, to arrive at a night like this. On the drive to the ground, one song played over and over in my head, uninvited but persistent. On the Flip of a Coinby The Streets. It felt less like music and more like a question I could not avoid answering.

“Turn your life on the flip of this coin
Turn upside a choice you’d normally avoid
And promise me you’ll follow what it says
Whatever it says”

I have worked incessantly during my time here, pouring myself into the idea that Chur can be something more than a footnote, something worthy of its place as the flag bearer for Graubünden. This region deserves ambition, identity, and belief. It reminds me of home in ways that are difficult to explain, perhaps because it speaks to the same sense of belonging I grew up with. I am not bigger than this club, and I would never pretend to be, but I am human. I read the papers. I hear the noises. Discontent carries easily in football, and even when you tell yourself it does not matter, it finds its way in. I would have hoped for patience, perhaps even understanding, but this game is not built on empathy. It is built on results, on visible progress, and on moments that can be easily counted. I do not take that personally, but I do feel it.

So, when the moment came, I did not retreat. I went for it. I flipped the coin and it landed – not on heads or tails but the choice of follow your heart or change, driven by fear. I responded – not with something reckless or foreign, but with the same ideas I have built on for years. The same structure in early build-up, three at the base, a box in midfield, movement everywhere, responsibilities shared. If this was to be our ceiling, then we would touch it playing our football, not hiding from it. The lyrics echoed again in my head, about turning a choice you would normally avoid and promising to follow what it says, whatever it says. Commitment, in football as in life, often comes down to that.

It did not come off, but not through a lack of courage. We played. We competed. We belonged on that pitch. Our expected goals exceeded theirs, 1.23 to 0.99, a small but telling detail that confirmed what I felt on the touchline. We created enough. We limited them enough. But they were clinical, as you would expect from a team living and breathing professionalism, with players earning more than our entire wage budget combined. When their moments arrived, they took them. When ours came, they fell just wide, were smothered by a glove, or struck the wrong side of fortune.

When the final whistle went, disappointment washed over me, but it was not hollow. There was pride in it too. We had stood in Letzigrund and looked like we belonged there. And as we made the journey back to Graubünden, we did so stronger in ways that are not always visible in league tables, more than two hundred thousand euros better off, carrying proof that this club can step into big spaces without shrinking. Some nights, football feels exactly like that coin spinning in the air. You make your call, you live with the consequences, and you keep walking forward, whatever it says.