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The small silhouette of Lino Martschini cut through the ice at the OYM center in Cham this Monday, August 4. Nine months after collapsing on a routine support against the SCL Tigers, the EV Zug forward took part in the first training session led by new coach Lauri Marjamäki. The jersey was red, a sign that contact remains forbidden, but the essential was elsewhere: number 46 has found his teammates and his ice again.
The knee that suspended everything
At the end of October 2025, a National League evening turned into a nightmare.
At the end of October 2025, a National League evening turned into a nightmare. Martschini winds up for a shot in the offensive zone, his knee gives way. Rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament. For a frame of one meter sixty-eight whose speed and lightning-fast changes of direction constitute his signature, the sentence is cruel. The rehabilitation promises to be endless.
The operation took place in Zurich in the days following the diagnosis. The surgeon mentioned six to nine months of unavailability, a figure the Zug staff refused to comment on publicly. The first weeks were the hardest: crutches, articulated brace, no weight-bearing. A player whose game relies on explosiveness suddenly confined to a couch.
The adopted Zug resident disappeared from media radars for months. No bitter statements, no public countdown. Just hours of strength training and core work in the shadows of the training center. Those who crossed his path describe a methodical player, almost maniacal in his rehabilitation rigor.
An attacker built for spectacle
Since his arrival at the club in 2012, Martschini has built a CV that speaks for itself. His accelerations out of the neutral zone have lifted the stands of the Bossard Arena dozens of times. His wrist shot, released with minimal reaction time, has fooled the best goaltenders in the Swiss championship.
The man with six selections for Switzerland has never been the most physical on the ice, but no one reads the game as fast as he does in transition. His teammates say he anticipates trajectories two passes ahead. In 2023-2024, he accumulated 44 points in the regular season, his best total in five years.
At 33, he embodies a rarity in modern hockey: the player trained elsewhere but become inseparable from a single jersey. His contract runs until 2027. EVZ supporters consider him a fixture, in the best sense of the term. A reassuring presence in a sport where rosters turn over every summer.
A new chapter under Finnish flag
Martschini's return coincides with the start of the Marjamäki era in Zug. The 48-year-old Finnish coach, poached from Kloten and under contract until 2028, led a first session he deemed encouraging. The 2026-2027 roster counts 22 players and the medical staff proceeds with caution on the veteran's case.
The Finn built his reputation in Kloten on a high tempo and empowering key players. With Martschini, he has a natural relay between the bench and the locker room. The young Zug prospects, including several Swiss hopefuls expected in the National League this season, will find in the veteran a model of consistency. The physical question remains: a return to competition requires certainties that only a string of friendly matches can provide.
The National League season starts on September 15 in Lausanne. Six weeks of preparation separate Martschini from his return to official play. A reconstructed ligament sometimes takes a full season before regaining all its sensations. But for the first time since that October evening, the Zug elf has laced up his skates with the group. And that, no medical protocol can quantify.