The new season of the Swiss Super League will kick off in the early morning of July 17th, Beijing time. The opening match will be between the young players who won four consecutive championships from the 2017-18 to 2020-21 seasons at home against the defending champion Zurich.
participating teams
The 10 teams in the Swiss Super League this season include the 1st to 9th teams from last season. Among them, 9th place Lucerne won the two-round promotion and relegation play-off with Schaffhausen and successfully stayed in the league. In the top league. The only promoted team is Winterthur, the Swiss League champion last season.
Winterthur was lucky to catch the last train last season. Before the last round, they were ranked second, 3 points behind the leader Aarau. In the final round, Aarau suffered an upset loss at home, and Winterthur, who had a big victory, successfully squeezed out their opponents and achieved promotion. The head coach who led Winterthur to upgrade is former Swiss international forward Alexander Frey, who also took over the coaching of domestic giants Basel this summer.
Competition format changes
Since the Swiss Super League will expand to 12 teams in the 2023-24 season, no team will be directly relegated this season. The last team will compete with the third-placed Swiss League in a relegation play-off. The Swiss League The top two will be directly upgraded.
European war seats
The Swiss Super League scored 7.75 points in the 2021-22 European war. The league ranking rose 5 places in the UEFA ranking to 14th. This way, it also won the 2023-24 European war. 5 seats. The league champion and runner-up will participate in the third and second rounds of the Champions League qualifying rounds next season, and the third and fourth-placed teams will participate in the second round of the UEFA Cup qualifying rounds next season. In addition, the Swiss Cup champion will participate in the third round of the Europa League qualifying round next season.
schedule and winter break
This season's Swiss Super League will enter the World Cup cycle and winter break after the 16th round on November 12. The winter break will last for 2 months. The league will end on May 29, 2023, and the promotion and relegation play-offs will be held within a week after the end.
Three pillars
In terms of strength, the young people are still the strongest team in Switzerland. The biggest move for young people this summer is to change coaches and sell away the league's golden boots. The club invited Rafael Wiki, who coached Basel in the 2017-18 season, as the head coach. His last coaching performance in the Swiss Super League was not ideal. Basel won eight consecutive domestic league titles under his leadership, but failed to prevent the strong rise of young people.
The departure of Shibacheu, the top scorer + league golden boot, has also had a traumatic impact on young people. The American forward made 32 appearances in the league last season, contributing 22 goals and 4 assists. After two seasons with the team, he scored a total of 34 goals for the youngster in the league. This summer, he was bought by Berlin Union for 6 million euros and landed in the Bundesliga . As reinforcements, the young people poached winger Ugolinic from Lucerne with 8 goals and 7 assists in 34 league games and substitute forward Cedric Aton who played at Fürth and Rangers last season.
The giant Basel invited Frei, as mentioned above. Last season he led Winterthur to return to the Swiss Super League after 39 years. Frey, who has experience in Basel both as a player and after retirement, will also lead the team in the Swiss Super League for the first time and is responsible for Basel's revival.
Basel basically retained the main team of last season in the summer window. The biggest impact was the departure of No. 1 goalkeeper Lindner. He played every minute of 36 league rounds last season and conceded 41 goals, the fewest in the league. Lin Dana's replacement will be Borussia Dortmund's Ernest Menschitz. Basel only spent 1 million euros on signings, signing the 18-year-old Kade from Hertha Berlin .
The defending champion Young Boys also lost last season's top scorer, the Gambian striker Chiese who scored 20 goals in 33 league appearances. He left the team after the expiration of his contract with the club and joined the newly promoted Serie A Lecce . The three major championship teams all changed coaches this summer. The new coach of the young people is the former Austrian national team coach Fuda. In addition to coaching Austria , he also served as coach of Graz Storm, Kaiserslautern head coach.
In terms of signings, Zurich signed two Chinese Super League veterans, former Shenzhen team midfielder Sernas and former Suning forward Santini .After Cernas terminated his contract with the Shenzhen team, he joined the Young Boys as a free agent and returned to European football after three and a half years. However, this time the venue was changed from Ligue 1 to the Swiss Super League. Santini joined the Young Boys from the Saudi team Hassafateh. He played 23 times in the Saudi League last season and scored 6 goals.
Follow those studying abroad
Speaking of the Swiss Super League, I have to mention the Grasshopper where Chinese player Li Lei plays. Their opponent in the first round was Lucerne. Due to the opponent's home venue, the game was postponed to August 10. Grasshopper's first game of the new season will be at 22:30 on July 24, Beijing time, against Lugano at home.
Grasshopper played 3 pre-season warm-up games. In the first game, they lost 1-5 to Swiss A team Schaffhausen, and Li Lei started. In the second game, they lost 0-2 to Swiss A team Yverdon, and Li Lei came on as a substitute in the second half. In the third warm-up match, they drew 1-1 with Bundesliga team Cologne. Li Lei was absent due to injury.
Focus on the new team
According to transfer market statistics, the total value of the newly promoted Winterthur team is only 6.93 million euros, making it the lowest-valued team in the Swiss Super League this season. The penultimate Sion's 12.9 million euros is nearly double that of Winterthur.
meritorious head coach Frei was poached, and his successor is former Swiss U19 head coach Bernard. He has only had coaching experience in the Swiss League before, and will lead the team in the top league for the first time. Coincidentally, Winterthur's first game will be at home against Basel, coached by former Frei.
