Football Season Guide

FC Thun are in the Super League because they won the Challenge League last season. They're no strangers to playing at this level, and will present a new challenge to Young Boys Bern in the latter's title push as FC Thun's return to this level brings the Bernese derby back. They were superb in the division below, and were justly promoted. They've been rather bold since then though, or perhaps unlucky. Whichever way you paint it, their squad has barely changed since last season with only LB Heule and midfielder Mattias Käit having joined. He has experience of playing at this level with Stade Lausanne-Ouchy. That's literally all they've done though, so it's hard to envision their campaign going as they hope it will without some reinforcements. They've made some substantial losses too. For example, veteran midfielder Castroman leaving on a free looked avoidable from the outside looking in. Losing Frith was unavoidable; he was superb last season. Well, it's not the end of the world but they still need to add to this squad, which they've failed to do other than the recent arrival of Mattias Käit. At present, squad depth is their biggest enemy. Once that's addressed, they need to add quality to both their midfield and defence in terms of proven Super League experience - Bertone, Bamert etc. is not enough. They're taking a lot of risks here if they don't. Although a LB last season, it's widely expected that Dominik Franke will play at CB this season, which is intriguing. It's not clear who he'd displace in that scenario. It's hard to envision this being a productive move for a team following promotion either, which again leads me back to their lack of depth. One thing that will always go in their favour is the artificial turf used in their home games - it's a lot harder for other teams with natural turf to play on. It might just prove enough to keep them up. Expect fire and goals from them in their games, which is the typical FC Thun way. They will always entertain more than anything else. A good campaign for them would involve them avoiding relegation though.