Football Season Guide

It’s mostly good news for the reigning champions ahead of this campaign. The only player of note that they’ve lost is centre-back Zesiger, whom they’re yet to replace so the logical conclusion has to be that they feel youngster Amenda is ready. He has looked good, to be fair to him, but it’s still a gamble with Lustenberger ageing rapidly and Camara simply not very good. Bluntly put, centre-back is the only real blemish in this squad, which is no different to any of their other recent campaigns, really. Being brutally honest, they won the title last season at a canter despite only playing well in a handful of games - the perks of having ruthless finishers, eh? Anyway, with von Ballmoos finally back in training after injury, they’ll be able to get Racioppi back on the bench soon enough. The latter did a good job last season, as it goes, but von Ballmoos is better. They’ve made some good additions to their squad pre-season, bringing in Polish midfielder Lakomy to compete with Niasse and Lauper for a role in front of the back four. It may even transpire that Lauper drops back into the CB role as a Zesiger replacement - he’s done it before. It’s unclear if Swedish prodigy Persson is destined for the first-team or not, or what will happen with Mambimbi now the forward has returned from an underwhelming loan spell in the Netherlands. They’re simply not problems, however - Young Boys Bern are well-equipped to win the title again this season, especially now they’ve added Ganvoula to an already formidable attack, and Janko to replace injury-prone Ruegg at right-back (likely to start ahead of Blum). I’d be astounded if they didn’t win the title again this season. It’s not because they’re particularly untouchable under Wicky; it’s just that they have some of the best finishers in Switzerland on their books, which enables them to win more matches ‘ugly’ than anyone else. The rest can’t string enough wins together to keep up so although Lugano, Luzern etc. have stepped their game up, it’s still not really a fair contest. The only possible concern for Young Boys Bern (other than their centre-back situation) is if other leagues (e.g. the German Bundesliga) attempt to steal their players after the commencement of the Super League because the example league starts later. One player that may be targeted is key midfielder Fassnacht, who would have left last season (the Swiss media insisted it was for Besiktas JK) had he not picked up an injury in August. Fassnacht, Rieder, Nsame, and maybe even Garcia are the most likely players to be targeted. Nsame - they can live without now that they’ve got Ganvoula. They’d struggle without the others, were they to leave. Based on the ‘here and now’ though, Young Boys Bern must surely claim yet another title, especially if the rumour mill is correct with their reported interest in signing Males from Internazionale.