Football Season Guide

Basel have won the last eight Swiss championships as well as nine of the last ten, so it is really not difficult to figure out what they will expect to achieve domestically going into the new season. The Red-Blues are becoming increasingly efficient at winning the league and the previous season saw them display remarkable dominance as they secured the title with six games left to play, having been on top from the first round until the last. Having had a number of impressive European adventures over the last decade, the Red-Blues have accumulated the sort of cash that other Swiss sides can only dream of and it is hardly surprising that they manage to bring in big names year in and year out. They have lost veteran strikers Seydou Doumbia and Marc Janko during the summer but have brought in proven quality in Ricky van Wolfswinkel, who signs from Dutch side Vitesse. However, the Red-Blues will likely be looking for more strikers as they are a bit short of numbers up top after Andraz Sporar also left. Another eye-catching new face is Zdravko Kuzmanovic who actually re-signed for the club back in 2015 but has spent time on loan at Udinese and Malaga in the mean time. He has had a number of injury troubles over the recent years, but will prove a key player if he can get anywhere near his best. The biggest change regarding Basel this summer is on the bench as Urs Fischer has left, with Under-21 team manager Raphael Wicky taking over. With Marco Streller and Alex Frei having important roles in their board now, the Red-Blues are taking the club in a new direction. The main idea is for as many positions as possible to be occupied by men who have played for the club in the near past. Of course, there does not seem much space for improvement domestically for Basel but their European results in the last two seasons have been below their usual standards and Wicky's main goal will be to re-establish the club as the formidable European side that they have been in the majority of the current decade.