The ball has been rolling again in the Super League since the weekend, and the championship race is more exciting than ever. However, it's not just the battle for the top spot that is interesting, but also the following facts.
Anyone who knows of a league in which the championship race is more exciting than that in the Super League must be a real football nerd. Because none of the leagues we know are as close as Switzerland. Lugano leads the table with a two-point advantage over FCZ in 6th place. Between them are FCB and Lausanne (31 points each) as well as Lucerne and Servette (30 points each). It is therefore not really surprising that in the first round after the winter break, the points will be shared in four out of six games. The following facts, on the other hand, certainly have the potential to surprise.
New signings languish on the bench
Anyone hoping to see new faces at the start of the year was disappointed, at least among the top teams. Neither Lugano, Basel, Lausanne nor Lucerne had any newcomers in their starting eleven. However, this may also be due to the fact that the aforementioned teams did not go all out on the transfer market in the winter.
GC and Winterthur have brought in two newcomers. Australian Nestory Irankunda makes it into the starting eleven for the Hoppers, Dario Ulrich for Winterthur.
However, the most prominent new winter signing in the Super League is undoubtedly Steven Zuber. And unsurprisingly, he is also in the starting eleven for FCZ. The only problem is that the 56-time international will not be welcomed with open arms by the Zurich club. With his GC past, Zuber is a thorn in the side of the FCZ hardliners.
However, the 33-year-old is not prepared to engage in a trial of strength and is concentrating on what he can influence: His performance on the pitch. And it was right against Yverdon. After the game, he says: "We talked a lot about the past, but at some point it's enough." He was right.
Chance proliferation without end
On Saturday, YB, Sion and Servette shoot from all guns blazing. But they did so rather unsuccessfully in front of their own fans. YB fired 25 shots against bottom-placed Winterthur, only 7 were on target, but none went in. Sion recorded 24 shots against GC, 6 of which were on target. Like YB, Sion also failed to score.
Five of Servette's 24 shots are on target. And at least one of them went in: Steve Rouiller scores in the 70th minute to make the final score 1:1 against St.Gallen. It was his 4th goal of the season, surpassing his record of 3 goals from the 21/22 season.
GC's impossible victory
The fact that GC celebrated a 1:0 away win against Sion on Saturday defies all logic. The Zurich side were outnumbered from the 2nd minute onwards, had just 25.9% possession and the shot ratio of 3:24 was also clearly in Sion's favor. In terms of expected goals, the final score was 3.14 to 0.25 in favor of Sion. A 3-0 win would therefore have been the expected result based on the chances.
But the mere fact that GC played outnumbered for so long and then won is an absolute rarity. Only in August 2006 did YB achieve a victory that was even crazier in this respect. Back then, YB player Ljubo Milicevic was sent off in the first minute against Aarau, and Miguel Portillo was also sent off in the 41st minute. Steve Gohouri scored the only goal of the game in the 53rd minute while being doubly short-handed. In the 80th minute, Aarau's Jean-Pierre Tcheutchoua was also sent off.
Tsawa follows in Papa's footsteps
On April 29, 2006, then Schaffhausen player Dorjee Tsawa scored his team's only goal in a 1-1 draw against Yverdon. Son Cheveyo Tsawa did not see the goal live, even though he may have been in the stadium. At the time, he was still spending his days in his mother's womb. Around eighteen and a half years later, 6840 days to be precise, Tsawa Junior has the full picture and scores his first goal in the Super League. And he does so against Yverdon, how could it be otherwise? Because it is not only his first goal, but also the only one in the game, the 18-year-old ends up being the celebrated hero. His dad, athletics coach at FCZ U21, has obviously done a good job.
