YB loses game and captain: The crisis continues – and now Barcelona is waiting for the reeling champions
Just because Winterthur lost a 1-0 lead in the final phase in Lugano did the Young Boys not slip back to the bottom of the table. The round-up to the Super League.
By Sunday afternoon at the latest, it was a used weekend for the Young Boys. They had the certainty that their captain Loris Benito would be out again. At least for the game in the Champions League on Tuesday away against FC Barcelona. But possibly also next Sunday in the championship against FC Basel. The central defender suffered a muscle injury in his left thigh in the 1-0 home defeat against Grasshoppers on Saturday and had to be substituted after 71 minutes.
Sad faces at YB after the defeat against GC: Coach Patrick Frame and his captain Loris Benito, who was injured again.
This means that the urgently needed leader is missing again. The player whose comeback was interpreted so much last weekend because the Young Boys had achieved their first win of the season in the Super League in Winterthur, of all places, in Benito’s first championship appearance. There was then talk of a trend reversal in Bern.
And now? A week later, helplessness can be seen around Wankdorf again. A home defeat is in itself difficult to digest, but the performance was so bad, especially before the break after the early deficit, that coach Patrick Framework couldn’t help but say clear words. “We would have enough quality on the pitch not to lose. But then every third or fourth pass shouldn’t be a bad pass,” he told SRF.
Against GC, for example, the Bernese team didn’t shoot at the opponent’s goal once in the first half. You have to walk widely around the capital to find a person who can remember the last time this happened. The fact that the YB game became a bit more dangerous towards the end was just a side note for Frame. “An early deficit shouldn’t throw us off track like that,” he criticized.
Before going to Barcelona, the Bernese can only hope that somehow a miraculous increase in performance will be achieved again, like a month ago in the Champions League playoffs against Galatasaray Istanbul. “It will be a game in which we can play freely,” says Framework, hoping for psychology. Without neglecting the football component. “We have to be compact, close the spaces and work well against the ball. Otherwise they will tear us apart.”
Controlled FCZ returns to success
As with YB, FC Zurich was also curious to see how it would react to the previous game. Only with the opposite sign. During the week, the Zurich team were badly beaten in St. Gallen (1:4). A trend reversal? No! The FCZ responded to the defensive inadequacies in eastern Switzerland in the home game against newly promoted Sion with a solid performance and a 1-0 win.
Mariano Gomez (right) scores the winning goal against Sion.
In the absence of top scorer Juan José Perea, defender Mariano Gomez took over the task of scoring goals. After a free kick, he scored the winning goal with a powerful header after around a quarter of an hour. As a result, the FCZ limited itself to taking no risks and controlling the game and opponents. That was successful, although in the end it was a bit of luck, as a final shot from Sion’s Théo Bouchlarhem in the 95th minute hit the crossbar instead of into the goal.
The FCZ therefore remained clean in half of its games. For now, the second half in St. Gallen with three goals conceded within 13 minutes (a third of all goals conceded this season) can be dismissed as an accident. The co-leader position (with FC Luzern, who beat Basel 1-0) was defended. Lugano (2-1 against Winterthur) is tied for third place with the top duo.
