With the enlarging First Division, the Swiss to league had only one relegated team this season. The battle for avoiding the last place in the table was between 4 clubs – Nordstern, Bellinzona, Chiasso, and Chenois. CS Chenois was the weakest, eventually settling last with 15 points. FC Chiasso finished 13th with 3 points more. Among the outsiders perhaps FC Nordstern (Basel) was the luckiest.
19 points and 11th place – small Nordstern had a wonderful season, considering their tradition: not only escaped relegation and having to play at least one more season in the top league, but leaving 3 teams behind. Measure of success really depends on the club.
Luzern finished 9th, which is more or less in accord with their tradition – mid-table.
Servette, however, dropped down – 7th at the end. This season suggested the end of their strong recent years. Perhaps.
Basel had a weak season too – 6th.
However, they won the Alps Cup – not much, but still winning something.
Three teams competed for second-best: Young Boys (Bern) finished 4th with 33 points – not a bad season for them. Neuchatel Xamax bested Young Boys by a point, but took bronze medals on worse goal-difference. Climbing up and most likely going to stay among the best for awhile.
Grasshopper managed silver medals. Standing, from left: Berbig, Lauper, Egli, Pfister, Herbet Hermann, Sulser.
First row: In-Albon, Zanetti, Koller, Heinz Hermann, Wehrli.
Good team,surely, but it was not their year and Grasshopper was not a contender – they barely finished second instead with 34 points, perhaps paying heavy price for cautious defensive tactics: they finished with the best defensive record and lost the fewest matches in the league, only 3, but they also held the record of ties – 12, which was almost half of the total seasonal games.
With their local rivals Grasshopper out of the way, FC Zurich sailed easily to one more title. 18 wins, 4 ties, 4 losses and 6 points ahead of Grasshopper at the end. Arguably, FC Zurich was the strongest Swiss club since 1975 and continued to be so – strong squad by Swiss standards, enforced by the long time Yugoslavian national team player Jerkovic, who had been essential part of the wonderful Hajduk (Split) of the 1970s. No longer young, but his class still helped a lot.