Uefa Cup Preview (or, the termination of Swiss Football)

The title of my post isn’t much of an optimistic one and for good reasons too!
Following the one draw and two defeats (with two home games) in the first leg, hopes are high for Young Boys alone.
The Bernese side only drew 2-2 at home to Club Bruges but they do have the quality to overcome their opponents, following the impressive win in the last matchday of the Swiss championship away at leaders FC Basel.
Ever since the arrival of coach Petkovic Young Boys have only lost one game and will be encouraged by the fact that in last year’s tournament Norwegian side Brann Bergen won 2-1 at Bruges and the return of Carlos Varela.
FC Bruges haven’t lost one game in the Belgian Championship yet but cannot entirely count on Belgian International Wesley Sonck who has a slight injury.

AC Bellinzona, instead, have the least hope of all Swiss teams. Following the impressive home game where they only narrowly lost to Turkish giants Galatasaray grabbing the advantage twice with one man less and conceding the defeat only in extra-time, they would have to play the match of their history to win with a 2 goal advantage in Istanbul. Considering their risky position bottom of the table of the Swiss League, coach Schallibaum might not want to risk pushing his players too much for something which seems totally hopeless from the start.
The Turks have won two consecutive games in their own league and can count on the quality of players such as Kewell, Nonda, Lincoln and Baros and Bellinzona will have Siqueira-Barras, Kalu, Neri and Gashi out for this one.

FC Zurich could very well create the shock of the day thanks to that late goal by Djukic in Milan that gave Zurich some hope (Milan won the game 3-1). Many things have changed since, Milan seems to have profited from the win against the Swiss side to start making a series of wins, including an impressive one over Inter.
Zurich are aware that they have chances of scoring (one thinks of Stahel’s goal that was unjustly disallowed when the score was still 0-0) although Milan welcome back Kaka and Gattuso.
Milan will be missing Inzaghi, Senderos, Borriello, Pirlo and Nesta while Zurich will have to do without two important players like Chikhaoui and Rochat.
Zurich has scored the most goals in the Swiss Championship up until now, have had 4 consecutive wins and are only 2 points behind leaders Basel – will this positive run encourage them to make an exploit tonight, in the same stadium where Luxembourg shocked Switzerland?

My predictions:
Bruges – Young Boys 0-1
Galatasaray – Bellinzona 3-1
FC Zurich – AC Milan 2-1