Young Boys take on the visitors Galatasaray in the first leg of the final round of UEFA Champions League qualification. The match will be played on Wednesday, August 21st at Stadion Wankdorf (Bern).
Pascal Ramé's team confidently won the last Swiss Championship (the first with 12 teams), but it was all thanks to a timely coaching change—Rafael Wicky lost a significant lead from the first part of the season in the spring (Servette and Lugano caught up with the "Young Boys"), but they ultimately secured a 12-point lead over "Lugano" and a place in the decisive round of the Champions League qualifiers. Unfortunately, the Yellow-Blacks have had a very disappointing start to the current season—5 rounds of the Super League without a single win. This kind of start has never happened to the "Bumblebees" in the domestic arena before. Three losses at the start—0-4 against St. Gallen, 1-2 against Sion, and 1-3 against Servette—were followed by two draws, both 2-2, against Yverdon and Zurich. The team plays reckless attacking football with a complete lack of balance between the lines—it wouldn’t be surprising if the Swiss side fails to get past Galatasaray, and if a couple more domestic failures occur, Ramé could be shown the door. Yes, the team has long played entertaining and open football on their artificial turf in Bern, but their defense has always struggled by European standards, and now even in the Super League, it is far from solid. The only positive event, perhaps, was the weekend’s 10-0 victory in the Swiss Cup over amateur side Printse-Nendaz, but that’s merely an appetizer before the serious challenge, which the hosts approach in far from the best situation with such a leaky defense (they conceded 13 goals in 5 league matches).
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Galatasaray also plays attacking football, which has brought the Istanbul side two consecutive Turkish championships in the last two seasons. This time, Buruk's team even edged out Fenerbahçe by just one point last season (100 against 99), displaying dominant football in the Süper Lig. The visitors' squad is, of course, more star-studded and experienced, which is why the Turkish champions are considered the favorites in this matchup—Mertens, Aktürkoğlu, Icardi, Torreira, Demirbay, Muslera, and now Michy Batshuayi have joined—a roster full of experience and class. The team also plays an attacking style, so we can expect an exciting encounter. Unlike the Swiss champions, the Istanbul side has started this season well in the Süper Lig—they managed to secure a 2-1 win in Konya in the last round of the league, and also won 2-1 at home against Hatayspor, but it feels like the team is just getting into gear. The only unpleasant hiccup was the 0-5 loss to Beşiktaş in the Super Cup at the start of the season, but that was almost three weeks ago, and the team has improved since then.
Neither team has had a single game under 2.5 goals this season—in total, 9 out of 9 matches for both teams have hit the over. This, plus the obvious attacking styles of the teams, their commitment to offensive play—since they are used to dominating in their respective leagues—along with the fast artificial turf in Bern and comfortable weather conditions, all point to a highly entertaining and high-scoring match at the start of this encounter. Both teams are not accustomed to playing defensively and don’t know how to, so we should expect an over 2.5 goals game.
Prediction for the match: Over 2.5 scored goals.
