ST GALLEN. FC St Gallen beat Servette 2-1 at home on Saturday, and the win moved them above both Servette and FC Zurich in the Super League. Lugano, who were not in action, stay a long way clear at the top. Sunday brings the three games that can still change the weekend: Young Boys against Zurich at 2pm, then Lugano against Basel and Lausanne-Sport against Thun at 4.30pm.
St Gallen led and then had to hang on. The goals came from Boukhalfa and from a penalty by captain Lukas Görtler. Speaking to SRF after the whistle, Görtler said he was very relieved when it came, and that the win was deserved. “We threw everything in after they pulled one back, and we had to survive some awkward moments,” he said. “At the end it was a deserved win.” He said the penalty was probably his eighth successful spot kick in a row. Servette’s leading scorer, Mutandwa, went off injured. The Geneva side had more of the ball after the break and still left with nothing.
The other Saturday scores were draws. Grasshopper Club Zurich and Vaduz finished 2-2. Luzern and Sion drew 1-1. Sion’s point mattered because they have played twelve games, one more than several of the teams around them, and they sit third.
The table Sunday wakes up to
Lugano have 31 points from 11 matches: ten wins, one draw, no defeats, and a goal difference of 34 to 9. Young Boys are second on 25 points, also from 11, and they have not lost either. Sion have 23 from 12. St Gallen’s win takes them to 19 from 12, in fourth. Zurich have 17 from 11. Servette are on 16 from 12. Basel, who go to Lugano on Sunday, have 14 from 11.
Below them the league is compressed. Luzern have 13 from 12. Vaduz, Thun and Grasshoppers have 10 points each, from 12, 11 and 12 games. Lausanne-Sport have 6 from 11 and host Thun. A home win for Young Boys would tighten the hold on second place before Zurich, fifth at kick-off, can take anything from the Wankdorf. A Basel result in Lugano would be the first time this season someone had properly shaken a leader that has dropped points only once.
Three kick-offs, one leader
None of Sunday’s games has been played. Young Boys against Zurich is the early match, in Bern. Lugano against Basel is the match with the table on it: the leaders, unbeaten, against a side that is seventh and still close enough to the European places to care about the trip south. Lausanne against Thun is the match that can pull a team off the bottom or leave it there.
Görtler’s line about the defending is the useful one for a Sunday preview. St Gallen, he said, stayed compact in the spells where the football was not flowing. The teams that play today will be judged on the same thing. Lugano’s record says they have been doing it all autumn. Everyone else is still trying to make one weekend change the sentence.