Football Season Guide

A look at last season's Super League table makes it clear that Basel were the best team and Young Boys were the second best side in the league. The Berners finished as many as fourteen points below the Red-Blues, but also won the second place quite comfortably, finishing fifteen points above Luzern. The big question now is whether any of these two gaps can be bridged. Young Boys are obviously being seen as the only side with a realistic chance of usupring Basel's throne, and they opted to go for quality rather than numbers during the summer, as they signed their former trainee Michael Frey following the impressive spring season that he had at Luzern, while also bringing in winger Thorsten Shick from Sturm Graz of neighbouring Austria. The list of players who departed contains no players of any note, with Benjamin Koliolli and Raphael Nuzzolo both struggling for playing time last season and Philipp Zulechner not showing enough to have his loan stay from Freiburg turned into a permanent deal. Young Boys therefore definitely seem to be a touch stronger than they were last season - they have quality and depth all over the pitch, but the big question now is whether the improvements that they have made will be enough to close the gap on Basel. Another thing to note is that Adi Hutter actually did not take over until the previous season was already two months old, and this will be his first full season at the helm of Young Boys. The Berners have had two lengthy spells during which they looked like title candidates under him last season and it now remains to be seen if they can maintain that form over the entire course of a campaign.