February 26, 2021
The Swiss Challenge League is the second level of football in Switzerland and consists of 10 sides who play each other 4 times for a 36 game season. The Champions are automatically promoted to Swiss Super League, with the second placed side facing a two-legged play-off against the side finishing 9th in the Super League. The side finishing bottom are relegated to the third level Promotion League.
FC Thun Berner Oberland, to give them their full name, were relegated from the Super League last season after losing their play-off against Liechtenstein side FC Vaduz 5-4 on aggregate. Their home ground is the 10,000 capacity Stockhorn Arena, which was completed in 2011 and has an artificial grass pitch.
Thun have never won the Swiss title, but a second place finish in 2004/05 gave them entry to the Champions League. After knocking out Dynamo Kiev and Malmo they played Arsenal, Ajax and Sparta Prague in the group stage. They took 4 points from Sparta but lost their other games to finish third. Dropping down to the UEFA Cup, they were eliminated by Hamburg ( 1-2 ) in their first tie in that competition despite a 1-0 win in the home leg. In 2011/12 Thun eliminated Italian side Palermo from Europa League on away goals before going out to Stoke City.
Thun started the season slowly and after three games without a win, manager Marc Schneider resigned in early October, with his replacement being Argentine Carlos Bernegger. Their form picked up, and a run of 9 matches unbeaten helped them to be 7th at winter break, and 4 wins out of 4 after the resumption saw them move to second place in the table. However, they had lost their previous two matches, 0-2 at home to leaders Grasshoppers and 0-4 at Schaffhausen to drop to third place behind Schaffhausen on goal difference.
Top scorer with 6 Nuno da Silva moved to rivals Grasshoppers at the start of February leaving German/Palestinian Saleh Chihadeh ( 1 cap for Palestine ) the top scorer at the club with 4. However, Chihadeh was only on the bench today.
Thun made two changes from their defeat at Schaffhausen, with Omer Dzonlagic and Fabian Rudlin replacing Liechtenstein international Nicolas Hasler ( 73 caps ) and Noel Wetz in midfield.
Their starting line-up included keeper Andreas Hinzel, who had a spell with Hamburg SV, centre-back Nikki Havenaar, who is Japanese ( albeit with a Dutch father who settled in Japan after a 12 year career there ) and Slovene midfielder Kenan Fatkic. Young German striker Gabriel Kyeremateng was at Stoke City but never made the first team.
FC Stade Lausanne Ouchy, often referred to as SLO, are the second team in the Lausanne region after Lausanne-Sport, and won promotion to the second tier for the first time in 2019. As their own stadium is not suitable for this level of football in Switzerland they are sharing the Stade Olympique de la Pointoise with Lausanne-Sport.
SLO were in second place in the table at the Winter break, but a run of just 5 points from 6 games this year had seen them drop to 5th place, 5 points off the play-off and 11 points from the automatic promotion slot.
Their manager is ex Real Sociedad and Barcelona Yugoslavia/Bosnia striker Meho Khodro whilst French/Algerian striker Yanis Lahiouel was their top scorer with 9 goals, and second place in the Challenge League scoring chart. Winger Mohamed Amdouni had scored 5 league goals.
Stade Lausanne made 4 changes from the 1-1 draw with Aarau the previous weekend. Full back Michael Perrier was suspended and Kosovan midfielder Mergim Qarri injured. Bosnian right-back Samir Efendic and surprisingly, Lahiouel dropped to the bench. Portuguese keeper Dany Da Silva and Iranian defender Bijan Dalvind were both missing with long-term injuries.
Their starting line-up included ex Bradford and Ross County French centre-back Christopher Routis, ex Marseille and Cadiz Comoros midfielder Rafadine Abdullah ( 7 caps ) and ex Athletic Bilbao centre back Unai Albizua. Midfielder Andy Laugeois is French and left back Dylan Taveres has one cap for Cape Verde. Ex Young Boys, FC Zurich and Luzern midfielder Christian Schnewuly recently arrived from Lausanne Sport on a free-transfer.
SLO had recently also brought in a few players on loan, most notably young Congo forward Guy Mbenza ( 1 cap ) from Royal Antwerp, who Transfermarkt rated as their most valuable player at £675K. Centre-back Vincent Rufli ( 1 cap ) is on loan from St Gallen and Swiss/Kosovan winger Alban Adjani is on loan from Servette but only made the substitute bench today.
When the two sides met in Thun in September they played out a 2-2 draw, but Thun won 3-1 in Lausanne on a freezing night in January.
The weather this evening was dry, with the temperature forecast to be 8 degrees at 20.00 kick-off local time. Thun wore their usual white shirts with red below the shoulders on the front, with red shorts and socks. Stade Lausanne were in their change kit of all black.
All matches in Switzerland this season have been behind closed doors, but Thun produce a free digital match programme for their home matches. Four of the five matches in each week’s round of fixtures are being live streamed on the Swiss League website ( ww.sfl.ch ) with the other match shown live on Swiss TV. All matches are also live streamed on Bet365.com. However, the live streams have just one camera, and there are no replays or close-ups.
Bet365 made Thun narrow favourites 7/5, with Stade Lausanne at 15/8 and the draw at 12/5.
The first chance of the match occurred in the 8th minute when Mbenza charged down Thun keeper Hirzel’s attempted clearance, but the ball rolled wide of the goal with the keeper stranded. 10 minutes later Mbenza shot well over from outside the area but the young Antwerp loanee looked prominent in the early phases, in particular showing good skill to skin his marker even if the chance fizzled out.
Despite Thun having most of the possession, Lausanne continued to look the more dangerous side, with Schneuwly shooting over from 10 yards and Routis sending an optimistic long range shot straight into the arms of Hirzel.
Thun eventually worked a half chance when Sutter met an in-swinging cross from the right but his header was blocked for a corner.
Stade Lausanne were still looking the more creative side, Asllani sent a low cross in from the right that Hirzel went to ground to gather and Amdouni’s through ball needed a smart interception to prevent Mbenza being put clear on goal.
After 36 minutes a good through ball into the right hand channel gave Thun’s Schwizer the chance to break clear, but his first touch was heavy and the opportunity was snuffed out. The last chance of the half also fell to Thun when Rudlin’s pass released the marauding Hefti, but Lausanne keeper Hammel was quickly off his line to narrow the angle, and able to block the shot.
It was the best chance of the half, but the score remained goal-less at the break after a half of few chances with both sides cancelling each other out. Both sides had tried to play neat, passing football on the artificial surface but lacked a cutting edge.
Thun started the second half on the front foot and almost immediately a cross from the right found Karlen in space in the middle of the Stade Lausanne area, but he mis-kicked and the chance was gone. However, that was a false dawn and as the game progressed it looked increasingly likely that the match would be a 0-0 draw. To borrow from an old saying, both sides were looking as dangerous as the Swiss Navy !
Thun in particular were looking toothless, with Kyeremateng looking lightweight and ineffective on his own upfront, although to be fair to him he was receiving very little support. He was eventually substituted in the 65th minute but the appearance of Chihadeh meant Thun’s formation was still the same.
Stade Lausanne did register a shot on target in the 61st minute when after a good move down the right-hand side, the inside ball gave Amdouni an opportunity but his left footed shot was saved by Hirzel.
Moments after Chihadeh had entered the fray, a goal was scored. Unfortunately for the home side, it was Stade Lausanne who took the lead. Amdouni’s lay-off enabled Schneuwly to shoot side-footed from just outside the area, and the ball beat the despairing dive from Hirzel to creep just inside the keeper’s left hand post.
If the visitors were expecting Thun to launch an onslaught in search of an equaliser then they would have been pleasantly surprised this didn’t happen. Out of the blue though, a snap-shot from Chidadeh just outside the area in the 74th minute did the bar with keeper Hammel motionless, but apart from that Thun’s efforts were long range and well off-target. The visitor’s keeper could have sat in deckchair reading the newspaper and still maintained his a clean sheet.
Stade Lausanne put some gloss on the final scoreline with a second goal in the final minute of the match. Substitute Lahiouel went on a mazy ran, and with the Thun defence unable to take the ball off him, he eventually made his way into the penalty area, and with the outside of his foot, flicked the ball across the face of the goal from 8 yards out and in the opposite corner for 2-0. A top finish to end a pretty dull encounter.
Thun have now lost three consecutive matches to their promotion rivals without scoring a goal. On this evidence they are very unlikely to return to the Super League at the first attempt and it is hard to see how and where they will score against well organised defences.
Stade Lausanne have revived their promotion hopes and are back in the mix for the play-off place. On this form they look a much better bet than Thun.
Thun : Hirzel – Kablan, Sutter, Havenaar, Hefti – Dzonlagic ( Dos Santos ), Rudlin, Wetz, Karlen ( Hasler ), Fatkic ( Salanovic ), Schwizer – Kyeremateng ( Chihadeh )
Stade Lausanne Ouchy : Hammel – Rufli, Routis, Albizua, Tavares ( Efendic )– Asllani, Laugeois ( Bamba ), Abdullah, Schneuwly – Amdouni ( Lahiouel ), Mbenza ( Gazzetta )
Highlights : https://www.sfl.ch/challengeleague/matchcenter/match/202021/thu-slo-20022/
Matchday Programme : https://imagepool.spruenglidruck.ch/pageflip/merkurdruck/fc_thun_lausanne/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2jWXcGeXW-HdbzT99y6SNgArWDH7sGOruPcemIWzaA49HJmFywomxT9G4
