What is happening to Swiss Football?

2008 will not be remembered as a memorable year in Swiss football history, no doubts about that.
Swiss clubs have only totaled 2,700 points in 2008 (19th position), compared to Cyprus‘ 5,666 and their 13th place (which is paramount to calculate the number of teams that can participate in European competition and from which round they start) is endangered by countries such as Denmark, Belgium and Greece just below them.

Yesterday’s demolition – with all three Swiss teams abandoning the competition before the group stage (first time since 2004) – is but one of many failures in Swiss football this year. Following the extraordinary feats of Basel in 2002 ChL and Thun not much later, and the good results in the UEFA Cup, something is going wrong in our small country.
The ridiculous home loss to Luxembourg in the qualifiers, added to the overall failure at Euro 2008 is turning this year into a nightmare. Luckily, the Under-21 selection has performed admirably and will now face a tough test against Spain in the playoffs.

Only FC Basel are left in the competition but considering their first two losses, even the chances of qualifying for the UEFA Cup are close to nothing. If Switzerland fail to win at least one of the two games against Latvia and Greece in one week’s time we might as well go back to playing ice-hockey.

And watching yesterday’s games we can count ourselves unlucky for facing opponents such as Galatasaray and Milan at such early stages, or for missing crucial players (Rochat, Chikhaoui for Zurich, and all Bellinzona’s injuries before yesterday’s game) or simply for being unlucky (Zurich’s disallowed goal in Milan, a crystal-clear penalty claim yesterday etc.) but this amounts to nothing – something is wrong in Switzerland.
Hitzfeld is probably right when he says that it’s a bad thing that Swiss talents are transferred so early and aren’t given the opportunity to grow in their own country and provide quality for the Swiss championship.

Below you’ll find a quick overview of yesterday’s results:

Club Bruges – Young Boys 2-0 (2-0)
Jan Breydel, 17.230 spectators. Referee: Balaj (Rou)
17th Akpala, 29th Sonck.
FC Bruges: Stijnen; Ciman, Alcaraz, Evens, Klukowski; Vargas, Simaeys, Geraerts, Dirar; Sonck, Akpala.
YB: Wölfli; Portillo, Ghezal, Affolter; D.Degen (46′C.Schwegler), Yapi (57′M.Schneuwly), Baykal, Bastians; Varela, Häberli (66′Doumbia), Regazzoni.

A very disappointing result, I was expecting Young Boys to qualify but somehow they lacked the will and strength to trouble the Belgian keeper – the result was logical and a deserved win for the home team. Overall the Bernese side looked stronger and should have been able to contain Akpala and Sonck, yet the defeat seems to confirm that Swiss football is undergoing something terribly serious.

Galatasaray – AC Bellinzona 2-1 (1-0)
Ali Sami Yen, 23.000 spectators. Referee: Nikolaiev (RUS)
24th Baros (P) 1-0, 53rd Sermeter (P) 1-1, 85th Yaser 2-1.
Galatasaray: De Sanctis; Serkan Kurtulus, Meira, Servet, Volkan; Arda (31′Arif Erdem), Ayhan, Mehmet Topal, Hakan Balta; Lincoln; Baros.
Bellinzona: Gritti; Siqueira-Barras, Mangiarratti (65′Mehmeti), La Rocca, Raso; Wahab (67′Miccolis); Sermeter, Rivera, Diarra, Conti (72′Roux); Lustrinelli.

Well, nobody expected Bellinzona to qualify but boy, oh boy, at least they weren’t a disappointment. It took Galatasaray to master all of their skills to defeat the minnows from Ticino. After losing (rather unfairly) the home game Bellinzona almost grasped a well-deserved draw; unafraid of the likes of Baros, Lincoln and the Turkish army, the Swiss team fought determinedly and can only be proud of its achievements. Forza Bellinzona!

FC Zurich – AC Milan 0-1 (0-0)
Letzigrund, 24.100 spectators. Referee: Skomina (SLO)
70th Shevchenko.
Zurich: Leoni; Stahel, Tihinen, Barmettler, Stucki (78′Lampi); Tico, Aegerter; Alphonse (82′Tahirovic), Abdi, Djuric (79′Nikci); Hassli.
Milan: Dida; Zambrotta, Bonera, Kaladze (30′Maldini), Antonini; Flamini, Emerson, Ambrosini (61′Kaka), Seedorf (76′Gattuso); Shevtchenko, Ronaldinho.

Well, a shame that Zurich couldn’t hold Milan – the away side was clearly superior quality-wise but Zurich played with determination and had several chances (including a crystal-clear penalty that was not awarded, which adds to the unfairly disallowed goal in Milan) but couldn’t get a chance to score. Shevchenko instead, inaugurated his return to Milan with the killer, the goal that took away all hope from the Swiss team and Swiss football in general.

Yesterday’s results are very interesting for one main reason: Basel will be busy with European competition until Christmas while the rest of the championship teams can now focus on the home league alone. Will Basel be able to concentrate on both, or will they fail to maintain their leadership with too many matters to handle and too few players to spare?

In other UEFA CUP games: Alexander Frei could not help his team, Borussia Dortmund, add a third away at Udinese to eventually lose on penalties where fellow Swiss International Gokhan Inler scored one of the penalties for the home team.
Swiss forward N’Kufo scored the only goal that opened the group stage to Dutch side Twente in a tight clash with Ligue 1 contenders Rennes.
Von Bergen and Lustenberger played the UEFA Cup game that saw their team Hertha Berlin qualify against St. Patrick’s of Ireland while Magnin only played the last twenty minutes in Stuttgart’s home draw to Varna.
Diego Benaglio was on the pitch for Wolfsburg at Bucarest against Rapid and conceded one goal that in the overall aggregate was insignificant.
Coltorti (Racing Santander) and Gelson Fernandes (Manchester City) were on the bench.