Sisyphus according to Greek mythology was the King of Ephyra. Despite his brilliance Sisyphus was driven to extraordinary deceit and manipulation to get what he desired. So fed up and angered with this behaviour the Gods decided to hand down eternal punishment to Sisyphus.

His punishment? To roll a boulder up a hill only to have the boulder roll back down said hill, once he had reached the top. And the duration of this punishment? Well…eternal, never ending, forever.

The underlying ideas of this punishment were several. First and most simply, hard labour, but along with this the idea of an activity that is seemingly futile, unrewarding and repetitive. This tale therefore was and is deemed as a metaphor for all work or activity that can be perceived as difficult, frustrating, repetitive and unrewarding.

The point of this?

Can sport not sometimes seem like rolling a boulder up a hill?

You work hard all year, roll your bolder up the hill, finally get to the top, someone hands you a tin pot, puts a medal around your neck and then when you are busy being feted, rolls the boulder back down the hill and tells you to start again.

This is where Servette find themselves after becoming champions in 2014, back at the bottom of the hill pushing that boulder and let’s be honest, as we always are, its proven difficult to start all over again after having reached the top of the hill.

But that is the nature of sport, it is repetitive, game after game, season after season year after year and the hardest part of sport? Staying at the top when you get there. North American culture has a name for teams that win repeated championships “a Dynasty” Servette are not a dynasty, not yet at least, and have been plagued by the usual post champions blues, a poor performance against Grasshopper was followed by a scrappy win at Olten followed by an abject opening 20 minutes in a defeat to Rotweiss Wettingen and the opening 35 minutes against HAC Lugano were no different. Mitigating circumstances there were, there always are, a six hour train journey has a debilitating effect on muscles and energy levels, poor umpiring can frustrate but quite simply on yet another occasion as has been all too often the case this season on match day as well as at training, we were just flat out poor.

At this stage there are two possible paths to take, the easy way (just let the bloody boulder roll back down the hill) or the right way. This is the part where people often say champions show what they are made of but you don’t need to be a champion to know that the standards that you set yourself on a daily basis are not being met and that it is time to march that boulder up that hill and set things right.

It was therefore with some incredibly honest and emotive words from Arnaud, Pierre and Laurent at half time that we marched back out onto our hill. What came next was a vast improvement in attitude, rhythm and intensity. The defence closed ranks, drove the midfield on, who in dominating possession created a hatful of chances for the attack who duly delivered, goals from Gaël, Juane, Nicolas, Christoph and Matthieu sealed victory. Servette eventually ran out 5:0 winners after a pleasing second half where we seemingly refound in part who we are and what we do. Our hill however is long and a lot steeper and far more treacherous sections remain for us to overcome, whilst 35 positive minutes in Lugano are pleasing and lift spirits and recharge enthusiasm the hard path will soon, as always become the path well-travelled, but unlike Sisyphus our fate and toil are not futile and unrewarding.

Next, all that remained was to head to Lucerne for another step towards that summit and that dynasty. Welcome to the Grind!

Patrick Montabletti