All guns blazing for the title contenders

After a summer of upheavals and distractions, it took until August for Swift Hesper’s preparations to kick into gear and gain momentum. New manager Emmanuel Da Costa complained about the inadequate training schedules planned by the club’s board, who prioritised high-reputation, big-money friendly matches against foreign opponents instead of focusing on more useful opportunities to hone the squad to the incoming gaffer’s needs.
 
Trimming the squad was also an issue of prime importance, after the staggering 45-strong roster led to many problems on and off the pitch, most notably the delays of salary payments in the winter, resulting in several players revolting. It was also one of the main reasons Swift were denied a UEFA international license for 2024/25 despite finishing on the podium.
 
Although many departures were announced early on, such as Rachid Alioui, Clément Couturier or Raphael Holzhauser, their replacements arrived late and failed to meet the levels of their predecessors. Some of the most notable arrivals, including Noah Scheidweiler, Florian David or Kobe Bohets, either need time to regain their match sharpness or still have to settle down in the country having previously lived abroad.
 
After all the issues and questions surrounding the team during a challenging summer period, Da Costa was eager to emphasise the need to trust the process and treat this season as a transformational period. While that sounded logical, it seemed like Hesper might already possess the assets needed for a league & cup double, let alone succeeding in one of the competitions.
 
They backed up such opinions with two emphatic wins to start their season flawlessly so far. Last week’s 4-0 demolition of Union Titus Pétange was followed by a similarly astounding 5-1 victory away in Hostert. Of the new signings, Anthony Schmid, Ambroise Gboho and Karim Bouhmidi have already found the net, in quite impressive fashion: Schmid and Gboho both scored only three minutes after coming off the bench, while Bouhmidi registered two goals in 18 minutes against USH.
 
We have to be careful about Hesper’s title challenge given the strengths of their first oppositions, but this summer’s transfer window surely represents a major improvement from the hit-and-miss affair of the past seasons. With all their trophy rivals in fine form, it will be no walkover, but Swift are showing that they are acclimatising to Da Costa’s tactical principles surprisingly quickly.

No mercy from the favourites

Besides Hesper’s victory, the three other main candidates recorded some of the highest wins of the matchday, with Differdange’s landslide 5-0 thumping of Fola Esch looking particularly remarkable. Elsewhere, a 10-man Progrès Niederkorn picked apart a Jeunesse Esch with relative ease, while F91 Dudelange also saw off Victoria Rosport without much fuss.
 
These three clubs all played continental games throughout July, so their readiness for 2024/25 was never in question. The fact they continuously find their ways to pick apart varying levels and types of opponents, though, suggests this might become the biggest four-way title race we have seen in a long while.
 
Every season has a team (sometimes two) who look destined for big things right from the start. The unbreakable, untouchable sides gliding past teams on a weekly basis to become runaway leaders of the table as soon as possible. The only peculiar situation is that we suddenly have four dominant clubs this time around. Whether anyone else can grow up to the task of joining them there is also still an open question.
 
The gap in quality between the biggest, richest squads and the rest seems more maddening than in recent years, looking at the ease with which the biggest stars can tear apart any defence with a single pass or movement. If this remains the case in the longer term once the season properly gets going for all teams, it might just benefit Luxembourg on the European stage. Having three or four competitive teams able to cut it at international level sounds like the perfect recipe for consistently maintaining an advantageous points tally.
 
What it would also achieve, though, is a type of domestic imbalance rarely seen before in the Grand Duchy. While Swift Hesper and F91 Dudelange have both enjoyed wealthy periods in the past when the destination of the title seemed a foregone conclusion at times, they were one-team eras that ultimately came to an end. Having the same teams in Europe over and over, on the other hand, would simply amplify the existing problems, creating an even wider gap.
 
Saying all four of the current big-hitters will carry on in the same direction for years would be foolish, but finishing in the top four will undoubtedly provide them with the funds and reputation they can build on in order to get there more regularly.