ThoseTwo top teams –
Between Lausanne and Servette, the rivalry has become explosive
There is always something going on between the two rivals. Sunday at La Tuilière, the sparks could well catch on the pitch as well as in the stands.
Published today at 7:51 a.m.
December 9, 2023: Servetti supporters tag La Tuilière during the night. The meeting began fifteen minutes late due to smoke bombs from the Lausanne ultras. She does not reach heights on the ground (1-1). The threat of a closed session for the next derby looms. It will not be implemented.
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- For three years, the lake derby has been talked about more often for its excesses than for its (in)play.
- This could start to change, with two sports projects starting to show results.
- Servette has a lead, Lausanne-Sport is working to reduce the gap. Both arrive in great shape for the first meeting in November.
A middle finger extended by a player to the opposing public, a celebration creating the start of a fight on the pitch before setting the Internet ablaze, a “graffiti on the stadium walls” operation carried out by disturbed fans the night before a derby , a burst of smoke which delays the start of the match by a quarter of an hour. And all this in two years. The 2020s transformed the rivalry between Lausanne-Sport and Servette into one of all excesses.
Even when the level of football isn’t at its highest, something always happens when these two come face to face. In collaboration with the competent authorities, the LS has spent the last few days refining its security system before the arrival of Servette this Sunday. Particularly its most delicate part: the flow of opposing fans towards the Tuilière.
Ransacked bus: no more buses
Everything would obviously be easier if a bus system could transport them to the enclosure. But this service no longer exists since garnet fans, during a trip at the end of 2021, vandalized a vehicle. The company that provided their care withdrew.
Servette recalled at the end of the week that the trip to Lausanne remained one of the most popular among his supporters. Whatever some say, preferring to minimize what the lake derby represents. There will be between 1000 and 1500 heading to the rival stadium on Sunday. To ensure that the clash of the two neighbors remains true to its explosive reputation.
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We must hope that the explosiveness in question leaves the streets and surroundings of the stadium. And come and settle on the ground. Reflection does not come out of nowhere. Like never in ages, all the ingredients seem to come together for Lausanne and Servetti residents to enjoy a truly great game of football.
The freeze frame doesn’t tell the whole story. But when will Lausanne-Sport (6e) and Servette (2e) faced each other in such flattering positions for the last time? It’s not yet the return of the glorious 90s on the shores of Lake Geneva, but it could start to look like it.
September 20, 2020: Servette had left Lausanne-Sport alone in the Challenge League fifteen months earlier, following a season marked by an unforgettable derby in the snow at Pontaise. The first Lake Geneva duel in the elite for more than seven years turns largely to the advantage of LS. In a stadium in Covid conditions, only 1000 people are there to see this.
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Ambition is no longer a dirty word or a vague memory. Servette brought home the Cup last season, Lausanne banged their fist on the table this summer by saying they wanted to re-establish themselves in the top 6 of the Super League. Coincidence and nice speech? Certainly not. If we don’t see football in the same way at the end of the lake and in the Olympic capital, we were able to draw up a project there. Which is starting to bring satisfaction.
The Servettian exception
On the scale of Swiss football, the garnet method looks more and more like an anomaly. Jérémy Frick begins his ninth season in a row at the club. Miroslav Stevanovic is at eight, Steve Rouiller seven, Timothé Cognat six. No one in the Super League has known or wanted to create such stability over the years.
A common belief is that continuity is one of the best predictors of performance in football. The Servettian case gives him credit. And when stability, made up of artists like Stevanovic or Cognat, meets players of the caliber of Dereck Kutesa (nine goals, top scorer in the Super League), this can create very spectacular phases of play.
September 30, 2023: Alvyn Sanches (right) goes to celebrate his opening score in front of the Garnet Section. The Lausanne midfielder seems to provoke the Garnets by forming an “M” with his fingers. The gesture goes badly. And karma hits: Lausanne finally loses 2-1.
LS
It’s not easy in such a rivalry, but Lausanne-Sport must accept finding itself behind its neighbor. Rather than seeing it as inevitable, the Vaudois are working sportingly to reduce the gap. By opting for the active method: dictating the game, settling into the opposing camp and causing the error.
This also made Ludovic Magnin say that a “defender who seeks comfort will never come to us”. A way of reminding us that the LS, even though it can become predictable, thrives on taking risks. This is a change from the years when he was a punching bag for the rest of the league.
More vulnerable on natural grass, Lausanne hosts on Sunday. On its synthetic. By building on three successes in a row. At Servette, not the slightest trace of a defeat in the last seven championship matches.
On the left, Alvyn Sanches. The man capable of all wonders at the moment, who scored his first professional goal in a lake derby and who could experience his last duel in Lake Geneva on Sunday before a possible transfer. On the right, Miroslav Stevanovic, the passer with the golden right foot, on the verge of reaching 100 assists in garnet. It is at 98. The setting for this Sunday is a wonderful one to make history.
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Florian Vaney has been a journalist in the Sport-Center editorial team since 2019. Trained in the regional press, he closely follows Swiss football, from the “bank” divisions to the Super League.More info
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