2024 - 2-1 victory in Letzigrund - GC keeps Basel at bay with combined forces

In the final minutes, Letzigrund rattled twice: the crossbar had barely stopped shaking after Mohamed Dräger’s powerful shot before it was subjected to another material test. This time it was Jean-Kévin Augustin who hammered the leather onto the crossbar with his full instep. GC keeper Justin Hammel still had his fingertips on the ball.

Bitter yellow-red card for Abels

It would have been a deserved 2-2 equalizer for the Basel team, who put their stamp on this game in the final phase. The superiority had not least to do with the sending off of GC’s Dirk Abels. The Dutch defender picked up the yellow card twice in just over a minute. First Abels slid somewhat impetuously into a tackle, a short time later his hand hit Adrian Barisic’s face in a natural swinging movement. In both actions, Abel cannot be assumed to have malicious intent.

Despite the anxious final minutes, the game ended happily for GC. This is because the “Hoppers” scored two goals out of nowhere after a tepid first half hour:

29th minute: Giotto Morandi is sent deep on the right and plays the ball into the middle, where several GC players are lurking ready to take a shot. Finally, it was Francis Momoh who effortlessly scored to make it 1-0.
36th minute: FCB defender Finn van Breemen knocks Bradley Fink off his feet in the penalty area. Morandi confidently sinks the penalty.

Basel was by no means surprised by the two goals conceded; rather, it seemed to be a kind of wake-up call for Fabio Celestini’s team. Less than 2 minutes had been played after the 2-0 lead when the bell rang again – this time in the Zurich goal. Ex-GC captain Dominik Schmid was launched from the left and sank his dry shot into the net via the inside post.