SION. The Swiss Super League has an early leader with a perfect record, and it is not one of the usual names. Lugano won 2-1 at Sion on Sunday afternoon to make it twelve points from four matches, a start made possible by a goal Anthony Racioppi will see in his sleep.
With eleven minutes left and the score level at 1-1, the Sion goalkeeper let a low shot from the substitute Beckham Castro slip under his body and over the line. It was the Colombian’s first Super League goal, and it ended Sion’s unbeaten home run at sixteen matches.
Sion had equalised only minutes earlier through their 20 year old substitute, after Lugano led 1-0 at the break. Mattia Croci-Torti’s side have now won every league game they have played, a week after qualifying for the league phase of the Conference League. Their game in hand makes the start more impressive still: Young Boys and Basel have each played five.
The later game produced the match of the round. Champions Thun led 4-1 at St. Gallen after 58 minutes, two of the goals from Brighton Labeau, and then survived a furious finish. Nevio Scherrer pulled one back in the 75th minute and Lukas Daschner made it 4-3 in the 90th, but the comeback St. Gallen had managed in each of their first three games would not come a fourth time.
For Thun it was a reminder of last season’s championship face, all running and conviction, after the disappointment of missing the Europa League. For St. Gallen it was a first league defeat of the campaign, and a defensive audit waiting to happen.
In the Rheinpark, Vaduz finally won. The promoted Liechtensteiners beat Grasshoppers 5-2, scoring four times after the interval, with Dominik Schwizer and Juan Cabrera each finishing with two. GC twice equalised before the break, but the second half belonged to Marc Schneider’s team, and a sixth goal ruled out for a narrow offside in the 83rd minute would not have flattered them.
The defeat leaves Grasshoppers as the only side in the league without a win, bottom on points lost, with a game in hand that now looks less like an opportunity and more like an obligation.
The round had begun on Saturday with Zurich’s 3-2 win at Lausanne and the 3-3 draw between Young Boys and Basel that kept YB within a point of the summit. Servette and Lucerne drew 1-1 in the weekend’s quietest game.
The table after five rounds reads: Lugano twelve points from four games, Young Boys eleven from five, Basel ten from five, then St. Gallen on seven, with Sion and Thun on six. It is the tightest top of the table in years, and it compresses further this week.
The league now plays its first English week. On Wednesday St. Gallen visit Grasshoppers and Thun host Lausanne. On Thursday Sion go to Basel and Lugano welcome Servette, before the leaders travel to Basel themselves on Sunday. The Zurich derby follows on Saturday. By next weekend the perfect dozen may be a memory, or the story of the season.