Champions League: YB has no chance in Barcelona

At some point, relatively soon, the observer on Tuesday evening will be struck by this thought again: What are teams like the Young Boys actually doing in the Champions League? The Swiss champions are helpless, hopeless and discouraged in Barcelona; they end up losing 5-0 – and if the Spanish giant hadn’t shifted down at least two gears, a 8-0 defeat would have been conceivable.

The gap between Europe’s top teams and the participants from third-tier leagues is huge. There have been several results such as 9:2, 7:1, 5:0, 4:0 in the first matches of this Champions League season. Too many to classify the new format of the premier class as attractive so far. It would perhaps make more sense and certainly more exciting if teams like YB and Slovan Bratislava, Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade were replaced by even more representatives from top leagues.

In any case, FC Barcelona lost 4-2 at Osasuna in the Primera Division three days before the confident win against the Young Boys. Even on Tuesday evening he doesn’t seem invulnerable – and yet he’s three classes stronger than his overwhelmed opponent. From the very first second, he only strives for one thing: damage limitation. YB would have nothing to lose at all. However, the guest lacks class and fighting spirit, compactness and creativity and all other virtues and skills that would be needed to at least come close to an honorable result.

The FC Barcelona footballers led by the 17-year-old wonder boy Lamine Yamal are allowed to trick as they please and perform magic as they please. They produce a few nice scenes with shows that will definitely do well as films on Tiktok. They don’t have to fear any resistance.

The pressure on the hapless YB trainer Frame is increasing

Like the 3-0 defeat at home to Aston Villa in the Champions League, the Young Boys’ presentation is sobering and largely unconvincing. This time YB conceded three goals from standard situations. And it’s of little use if the club’s protagonists point out the size and squad value of the opponent – from that point of view, Osasuna shouldn’t have had to face Barcelona in the first place. And in the Swiss league, the Young Boys are a kind of FC Barcelona themselves, at least in terms of size and squad value.

There are still six game days left for YB in the Champions League to prove that they are right to take part in the most important club competition in the world and that they have earned around 40 million francs in income. We continue in three weeks with the home game against the Italian champions Inter Milan, who won 4-0 against Red Star Belgrade on Tuesday.

However, the Super League is much more important for the Young Boys in this difficult autumn. The game at FC Basel follows on Sunday, and the affair is almost as spectacular as if the rivals were facing each other in a finalissima. It’s the meeting of the seventh with the eleventh – and therefore a strange setting for the duel between the two biggest clubs in Switzerland.

Before the two-week international break, Patrick Framework is also facing a headwind at St. Jakob-Park. The YB coach describes the performance in Barcelona as “instructive”, the goals conceded from free kicks and corners as “annoying” and the three or four chances his team created as “positive”.

If there is another defeat in Basel, things could get tight for Framework in his new position. Perhaps if the downturn continues, the Young Boys will soon think bigger and look at coaches like Urs Fischer and Lucien Favre, who are currently without a club. In the short term, Joel Magnin from the U-21 team would be available again as a stabilizer; he replaced Raphael Wicky on an interim basis in the spring.

Wicky was released in the spring even though he was in first place with YB. That alone shows how the boundaries in Wankdorf have shifted. The club officials seem to have lost touch and sensitivity to the situations. This is proven by the unpleasant departures in recent months of important employees such as CEO Wanja Greuel, of long-time heroes such as Jean-Pierre Nsame, of the successful coach Wicky – as well as, among other things, several inadequate transfer phases in which the Young Boys acted surprisingly hesitantly and irritatingly. And so the team today lacks leading players.

For the first time, the powerful spycher is also being criticized

For the first time since he was installed as sports director in autumn 2016, Christoph Spycher has also come under criticism. Under his responsibility, YB rose to become the most successful Swiss club, both in terms of sport and finance. After eight wonderful years with six championship titles and four Champions League participations, Spycher, as a board member, sporting CEO and even co-owner, has a level of power rarely seen in business. There are no more objections in the company.

Now Spycher is required as a crisis moderator. Like sports director Steve von Bergen, who was second choice behind former YB player Pirmin Schwegler when he was hired. Until recently, Schwegler worked at Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga as director of professional football before the contract was terminated by mutual agreement at the end of July due to quarrels within the company. Schwegler’s reputation is excellent, the Swiss is very specifically considered as sports director at Eintracht Frankfurt. It would be surprising if the Young Boys weren’t also interested in the 37-year-old, who once played with Spycher at Eintracht Frankfurt.