BERN. The match of the Swiss season so far ended without a winner, which felt about right. Young Boys and Basel drew 3-3 at the Wankdorf on Saturday night, a top-of-the-table meeting that lurched through four lead changes of mood and left both sides a point better off and neither satisfied.
Alvyn Sanches was the game’s outstanding figure, at the heart of everything YB created as the champions raced into a 2-0 lead. Basel, overrun for half an hour, answered through a stunning Kazeem Olaigbe strike and an Asane Sow finish from a move begun by Xherdan Shaqiri, whose introduction had changed the visitors’ pulse.
Sanches struck again to make it 3-2 just before half-time, and the pattern held after the break: YB pressure, Basel resistance, until Victory Akpe curled the equaliser past Marvin Keller in the 71st minute. Sanches came close to a hat-trick winner late on. It stayed 3-3, and the table stayed as it was: YB top on 11 points, Basel second on 10.
Earlier, FC Zurich had won the afternoon’s other spectacle, 3-2 at Lausanne, their first league victory away from the Letzigrund since mid-December. Umeh Emmanuel scored the decisive goal for a Zurich side whose five-match start has yielded two wins and three defeats, a team that remains easier to watch than to predict.
In Geneva, ten-man Luzern left with a 1-1 draw that felt like more. Servette led through Miroslav Stevanovic on 14 minutes, Luzern lost Oscar Kabwit to a red card for a reckless foul six minutes later, and still found an equaliser through Andrejs Ciganiks before half-time. Servette’s stuttering start continues: four points from four games.
The round completes on Sunday, and the plot tightens. Lugano, third with nine points from three games and an 11:2 goal record, visit Sion at 2pm knowing a win pulls them level with YB at the top with a game still in hand. St Gallen host Thun at 4:30pm, and Vaduz, still without a point, host Grasshoppers in the evening’s other game.
Five rounds in, the Super League has its shape: YB and Basel trading blows at the top, Lugano stalking both with Europe on their calendar, and a chasing pack already looking up. Tuesday brings YB’s trip to Zurich. The season, like Saturday night, is not slowing down.