Midway through pre-season, Chur find themselves across the border in Liechtenstein, playing out a quietly revealing afternoon at the Sportplatz Blumenau in Triesen. The stadium holds little more than 1,100 spectators and offers few of the theatrical cues of a new campaign, but for those watching closely, this was never about spectacle. 

For the assembled media, the team sheet alone provided an early window into the thinking of Inaki Arriola as he begins to shape the next iteration of his side.

It has been an unusually restrained summer in Graubünden. Continuity has largely been preserved, with the notable exception of Matteo Gambardella, who, after a difficult season, pushed for a new challenge and completed a €125,000 move to Aarau – a record fee for the buying club. There has been murmured interest elsewhere, particularly in Tidiane Diallo and Xabier Iriondo, but only Diallo was named in the starting XI here. As ever, Arriola has revealed little publicly, preferring to let selections and structures do the talking.

Nicolas Ammeter started in goal, but it was the defensive line that immediately drew attention. Alongside Diallo were two unfamiliar names: Moussa Mané and Rúben Dantas Fernandes. Ahead of them, the familiar pivot of Simon Luchinger and Brian Farinas resumed their roles, Luchinger anchoring the build-up while Farinas operated with greater freedom as a box-to-box presence. Zidan Tairi and Jano Monserrate retained their places as dual tens, but the left flank belonged to another trialist, Henrique Pereira, while fourth triallist Fabrizio Cavegn led the line.

Within minutes, the press box became a hive of whispered conversations and hurried searches. Who were these players? What did they represent? And perhaps most importantly, why these profiles?

Rúben Dantas Fernandes is the most recognisable name of the quartet. Now 31, the Luzern academy graduate brings a decade of Super League experience, most recently with St Gallen, Grasshoppers and Sion. His profile is intriguing precisely because it challenges the usual assumptions about an attacking full-back. Last season, he logged over 2,500 minutes and ranked highly among Super League wide defenders for tackles and pressures, suggesting a defender comfortable winning the ball back in advanced areas. More interesting still is his creative output: Dantas averages roughly three key passes for every completed dribble. Neither metric is particularly high-volume, but together they point towards a wing-back who creates through decision-making and positioning rather than raw explosiveness. For an Arriola side that has historically valued structure over spectacle that deep in the defensive structure, this feels deliberate – a creative connector rather than a auxiliary centre back.

If Dantas offers subtlety, Moussa Manéprovides contrast. The 30-year-old Senegalese wing-back has a circuitous career path, beginning in southern Italy with Bari and Napoli, before returning to Senegal in 2025 to feature for Génération Foot and Diambars. Last season, he resurfaced in France, and his profile is unmistakably that of a modern, aggressive wide defender. Mané combines high interception numbers with an unexpectedly strong aerial presence, but his defining quality is ball-carrying. He is a volume dribbler, direct and fearless, capable of breaking lines on his own. Where Dantas looks to shape play, Mané looks to rupture it.

Henrique Pereira, at 32, brings experience of a different kind. A product of Benfica’s academy, he arrived in Switzerland with Grasshoppers in 2026 and went on to rack up close to 200 appearances over eight seasons. Now a trialist, his statistical profile – drawn from a modest 553-minute sample – hints at a player comfortable operating on the edge of control. Compared against Super League midfielders, Pereira appears high-risk and highly creative, but also surprisingly relentless out of possession. He wins the ball back frequently, shoots accurately from distance, and converts chances at an impressive rate for a wide or deeper-lying player. This, to us, does not scream a starter-in-waiting, but rather the sort of disruptive, intelligent option Arriola has often favoured from the bench.

Then there is Fabrizio Cavegn, the most emotive story of the afternoon. Born in nearby Ilanz, Cavegn passed through Chur’s youth system between 2017 and 2020 without ever making a senior appearance. His journey since has been nomadic but productive: spells at St Gallen and Vaduz followed by nine years in England with Bristol Rovers and Wycombe Wanderers, across League One and League Two. Almost every season yielded double figures for goals, and last year alone he logged more than 3,600 minutes. When compared to League Two forwards, Cavegn emerges as a pure finisher – converting a high proportion of his shots, contributing little to build-up but offering honest defensive work and a respectable aerial presence. He is, in many ways, the antithesis of the modern all-action striker, and that may be precisely the point.

As the match unfolded, Arriola’s intentions began to surface. Fernandes was encouraged to drift inside during build-up, creating a clear 2–3–5 structure and allowing Farinas (blue circle) to start wider before arriving late into advanced zones. This asymmetry tilted play towards the left, congesting that side and, in turn, opening space on the right for the wing-back to attack. Monserrate frequently dropped into midfield, while Tairi and Cavegn alternated between pinning the back line and vacating space for runners to exploit. Cavegn, in particular, looked slightly out of his natural habitat, but the minutes were valuable – and instructive.

Whether any of these trialists ultimately sign remains to be seen. What is already clear, however, is that this is not a scattergun approach. There is nothing flashy here, no obvious marquee addition. Instead, there is coherence: a collection of profiles that hint at subtle tactical evolution rather than wholesale change. 

In Triesen, on a quiet pre-season afternoon, Chur may have offered the first glimpse of what Inaki Arriola is trying to become next.