Football Season Guide

While still being the country's most decorated club, Grasshopper have not been a true force in the Super League for well over a decade and normally rely on their youth teams as well as unearthing unknown gems from abroad. They have been a solid top half club over the majority of the last few seasons. This has a lot to do with the fact that they have struck gold with the arrivals of Munas Dabbur, who left them last season for Salzburg but returned on loan for the second half of the previous campaign, and Caio. However, it is definitely an end of an era for the Zurichers with Dabbur now being back at his parent club and Caio shocking their faithful this week by leaving for Maccabi Haifa. The Zurichers have also lost their highly-rated keeper Joel Mall, who moves to Germany to join Darmstadt but they have at least signed a proper replacement for him in Heinz Lindner. The list of players that joined is rather underwhelming, with Liindner being one of only three players to sign at this point. The other two were Michael Fasko, an unknown quantity in Switzerland, and Albion Avdijaj, a decent player, whose finishing capabilities leave a lot to be desired. Despite having a decent run in the final third of the previous season under Carlos Bernegger, the Zurichers are unlikely to be too optimistic going into the new season. They have lost one of their best two players, the other one is also reportedly on his way out and they simply do not have the players to replace either of them. Having said that, they have been written off on numerous occasions over the recent years only to see some of their young guns step up. The possibility of a new Izet Hajrovic or Steven Zuber emerging this season can by no means be written off, given just how good their academy is.