Switzerland

Switzerland. Ranked 19th. Still keeping its strange championship formula of two stages: 12 team top league, which after the end of the first stage continued without the bottom 4 teams anew, carrying half the points from the opening stage to the second. Meantime Second Division was divided into 2 groups for its second stage in which the last 4 teams in the first stage were included and the top 2 teams in each groups were promoted to start the next season in the top league. The complicated formula will be shortened only to the second stage here. Switzerland still used 2 points for a win and had intriguing mix of imported players – some aging and fading stars, some middle of the road players, some bright talent rather expected to play in bigger championships. By itself, nothing new about such a mix, but Europe was rapidly moving to permit 3 foreigners on the field and Switzerland seemingly was going a step further, for few clubs had more than 3 foreigners this season. And some of them apparently were behind the current success of their teams.
FC St. Gallen was the prime example of this new tendency: they had 3 Chilean national team players plus forth foreigner. If Patricio Mardones and Hugo Rubio do not ring many bells, Ivan Zamorano does – at the time, he was not yet the mega-star, but only beginning his great European journey, yet the impact of the Chileans was immediate: FC St. Gallen won the opening stage of the championship with 28 points: 9 wins, 10 ties, 3 losses, 40-24 scoring record. They clinched top position only by a point, but it was memorable performance for usually St. Gallen occupied the lower half of the table. And in the same time their great first stage meant almost nothing… the final stage started with clean sheets, so it was hard to tell who was playing their best in the opening stage and who was playing just enough to qualify to the final stage, preserving strength for it.
Down the table in the first stage ended Servette (9th), FC Wettingen (10th), FC Aarau (11th), and AC Bellinzona (12th) – they were joining the Second Division teams in the second stage, hoping to finish among the top two in their respective group and maintain top-league place. However, some well known clubs were in Second Division now – if St. Gallen jumped up, FC Zurich and Basel already plunged down and played in the Second Division. Hoping to climb back to their familiar environment, no doubt. But all depended on the second stage of the season and the usually leading Swiss clubs had it tough: they were in stronger final Group A, where Servette and Bellinzona also came to play – 4 teams competing for 2 promotion spots.
Group B was not all that tough – those coming from the top league seemingly had considerable advantage. Possible challenge was absent, for those who had stronger history, presently had only history:
FC Winterthur finished 7th with 7 points – only CS Chenois was more miserable than them (last with 6 points). Top row from left: Paul Hollenstein (Physiotherapeut), Flavio Battaini, Urs Güntensperger, Roland Käser, Marco Filomeno, Mario Uccella, Markus Portmann, Helmut Gabriel, Christian Graf, Mauro Ferrari.
Middle row: Ernst Rief (Masseur), Alfons Bosco (Trainer), Stephan Zwahlen, Joachim Hutka, Patrick Meili, Daniel Haefeli, Reto Arrigoni, Urs Isler, Tiziano Sacchetti, Urs Rüegg (Assistenztrainer).
Front row: Armin Krebs, Marcel Balmer, Oliver Bellwald, Sergio Gurrieri, Antonio Santini, *, Michael Gänssler, Markus Michael, Andreas Nickel.
FC Locarno was 5th with 13 points.
FC Grenchen ended 6th between Winterthur and Locarno with 9 points. FC Baden was 4th with 16 points and FC Bulle finished 3rd with 17 points. So, the teams starting in the Second Division was no problem for those from top flight:
FC Wettingen took second place with 22 points, losing the first place on worse goal-difference: +20, but they lost just a single match in the final stage and permitted only 9 goals in 14 games in their own net.
FC Aarau clinched the top place, thanks to 22 points and better goal-difference than Wettingen: +25. They won the most games and scored the most goals in Group B: 10 wins and 35 goals. But all that was academic – the important thing was that both FC Aarau and FC Wettingen preserved their First Division places for the next season.
No drama in Group B, but Group A had 4 teams potentially eager to go back to the top league. The other 4 were not contenders: FC Schaffhausen finished last with 7 points, FC Chur – 7th with 9 points, FC Fribourg – 6th with 11 points, and Yverdon-Sport FC – 5th with 13 points.
AC Bellinzona lost the race among the stronger: 4th with 15 points and thus relegated from First to Second Division. FC Basel was unable to succeed too: 3rd with 17 points.
FC Zurich finished 2nd with 20 points – similarly to Wettingen in Group B, they ended second only on worse goal-difference. Looking at the squad, it is quite strange to see FC Zurich in the Second Division : apart from strong Swiss players, they had Norbert Eder (West Germany), Jan Berger (Czechoslovakia), and Marcel Raducanu (Romania). Aging all of them and fading, but Berger and Raducanu were national team players for years and still useful for their home countries and Eder was solid regular in Bayern’s defense in the last 6 years. FC Zurich was not relegated with this trio, but the current squad was clearly made having restoration of leading position in mind. So far – so good: FC Zurich earned promotion back to top flight. Yes, they finished 2nd, but promotion was the goal and it was achieved.
Servette clinched the first place, coming ahead of FC Zurich on goal-difference: 20 points from 8 wins, 4 ties, 2 losses (the same as FC Zurich), 29-13 scoring record (scored 1 goal less than FC Zurich, but had 4-goal better defensive record), giving them +16 goal-difference to FC Zurich’s +13. Servette kept their top league place. Top row from left: inten: Bersier, Cacciapaglia, Besnard, Fargeon, Epars, Acosta, Burri
Middle row: Sinval, Djurovski, Rufer, Locca, Pazmandy, Ritschard, Schällibaum, Barrel, Grossenbacher
Sitting: Türkylmaz, Favre, Guex, Pedat, Kobel, Hertig, Bonvin, Stiel
Like FC Zurich, it was puzzling why Servette was so down this season – enough the mention that Kubilay Türkylmaz was in their squad, along with other good players. Well, weak season for sure, but at least they avoided the shame to start the next one in the second level.