When you build a first team that competes in the top six and lives simultaneously in domestic competition and European football, what you are really building is not a team but an environment. The environment is everything. The environment is what allows young players to understand that their development is not something abstract that happens in training sessions, but something that happens every day in the way they breathe the culture, the expectations and the behavioural standards around them. At Chur, what I feel very strongly is that the infrastructure is not just physical, although the facilities are exceptional, but intellectual. There is clarity about what a Chur player must look like, how he must think, and how he must behave inside the collective structure.

Iñaki Arriola has been very clear that development here cannot be generic. Every player is treated as his own project, his own ecosystem, his own learning process. Individual development plans are not documents for us, they are living roadmaps. We are not trying to produce players, we are trying to produce solutions for the first team model. That is why intelligence, work ethic and comfort on the ball are not simply desirable qualities here, they are survival tools. A young player who cannot think the game or cannot function within positional references will always feel the game is moving too fast for him.

This next generation between seventeen and twenty is interesting because they are growing inside a team that is already competitive. This changes everything. It means their minutes are not educational minutes given out of necessity, but earned exposure inside a demanding context. When a young player reaches 1,000 minutes here, those minutes have weight. They are not empty experiences. They are stress experiences. Learning experiences. Moments where the game asks real questions.

Valerio Christen is maybe the clearest example of how we try to shape profiles rather than just accept what exists. His objective is not just to be a striker who scores goals. We are trying to build a complete reference point who can give us aerial presence, depth attacking capacity and reliability inside the box. What is positive is that he is already meeting the performance indicators we set for him, even if this has come largely in matches with slightly lower contextual difficulty. The next evolution for him is physical maturity. Not strength in isolation, but the ability to repeat high intensity actions and survive the physical demands of top level football over many years. If he continues with the same professional mentality, the timeline of two to three years feels realistic for him to become physically complete.

Joao Correia represents a different type of challenge. He is a defender with characteristics that belong to a more traditional defensive education, strong in duels and defensive situations, but we are asking him to adapt to a model where the first responsibility of a central defender is to give calmness and clarity in possession. His loan in Nürnberg is giving him exposure to a demanding physical competition but we are still not consistently seeing the positional security on the ball that we require. At nineteen he is entering a decisive phase because the adaptation now becomes mental rather than technical. It is about whether he can transform how he understands risk and responsibility in possession.

Oscar is still very much in the first phase of his football life. What has pleased me most is not his football but his personal evolution across the season. Mentoring has helped him understand what it means to be a professional every day. His talent is obvious but still very raw, especially in his decision making around the final action. Game intelligence is what will determine his level, not his natural ability. A loan could become a very important next step because sometimes intelligence develops fastest when the game forces you to solve problems yourself.

Josua Testoni is experiencing something many young players must pass through, which is learning patience inside a role that does not always allow statistical expression. He is currently functioning in a more conservative interpretation of his position, which limits what appears externally but internally we see a player with a very high ceiling. His next evolution must come through confidence on the ball and personality within the structure. Not taking unnecessary risks, but learning when his moment to impose himself arrives.

Joseph Ballo’s pathway reminds us that development is never linear. His minutes have been limited and what we see is not a lack of ability but a gap in psychological readiness compared to some others in the group. This is very normal. Mental development often arrives at different speeds. The plan for him feels clear: first stabilise his mentality through mentoring, then expose him to responsibility through a loan where he must stand on his own feet. These steps cannot be rushed.

Nikola Babovic is in a very interesting learning situation at Rapperswil because struggling teams teach different lessons. When a team suffers, players learn defensive discipline, emotional resistance and collective sacrifice. His tactical role there is more conservative than what he would experience with us, but this is not negative. It is adding layers to his understanding. He feels close to being ready for our environment, and the next step is largely about mental sharpness and consistency rather than ability.

Marko Durdevic is probably the most complete at this moment, which is logical as he is also the most mature. His loan at Wehen is showing us a player capable of influencing games consistently and adapting to a high competitive rhythm. We monitor him very closely because profiles like his often transition back to the first team faster once they demonstrate this level of stability. His challenge will be maintaining his growth trajectory once he returns into a more demanding positional structure.

Michael Janutt’s development has been one of the most satisfying processes to observe. Playing in a team under constant pressure at Concordia has forced him to develop defensive awareness and concentration because mistakes have immediate consequences. For a full back we imagine eventually functioning as a holding presence with strong technical capacity, this education is extremely valuable. He is close to meeting almost every development metric we set, and now the focus becomes defensive intelligence in positional moments rather than just individual defending.

Aleksandro Duro is at the very beginning of his Chur story. Without minutes yet, his development becomes observational from our side. This phase is about understanding his adaptation, his daily habits and how quickly he absorbs the behavioural demands of our environment. Sometimes the first real development step is simply learning how to belong to the level.

What gives me confidence about this generation is not only their talent but the coherence of their pathways. Some will arrive in our first team. Some will grow through loans. Some will eventually move elsewhere. This is the reality of modern football. But if the methodology is correct, every player leaves better than he arrived, and that is also a success metric for a club with a true academy identity. The important thing is that they are not just learning to play football. They are learning how to understand football. And when a young player truly begins to understand the game, that is when you know his real career is beginning.