
Perplexed
The Bernese Sandro Lauper and Filip Ugrinic.
Freshfocus/Blick/Toto Marti
- The Young Boys start the league phase of the Champions League with a 0-3 home defeat against Aston Villa.
- 2 goals conceded were preceded by Bernese errors.
- The English team had two more goals disallowed for handball.
- YB’s next stop in the “premier class” is Barcelona in 2 weeks.
The Bernese fan community was angry – and rightly so. Jhon Duran had just stood on the advertising boards and cheered provocatively in front of the home fans. The Aston Villa joker was rightly shown a yellow card for this, and was punished by karma shortly afterwards: his beautiful curling goal that supposedly made it 3-0 in the 79th minute was disallowed after VAR consultation; the ball had hit Amadou Onana’s hand during the build-up play.
Instead of drawing strength from this, the Young Boys continued to play harmlessly and allowed their opponents from England to have their way too often. This was the case 7 minutes later: Onana was not tackled consistently enough after a pass into the backcourt, but was able to position the ball and scored with a precise finish to make it 3-0. It was the final point in what was ultimately a one-sided match.
Own mistakes brutally punished
The Bernese team went into the game fresh and courageous with the youngest starting eleven in their Champions League history (average age 25 years and 20 days). From the first minutes, it was clear that the yellow and black team wanted to take points from the fifth-placed team in the Premier League on their home artificial turf.
There was a lot of forward momentum, especially from the young full-backs Jaouen Hadjam (21 years old) and Zachary Athekame (19), but the Bernese were too inaccurate near the goal. In the middle of the courageous performance, a few errors crept in – unforgivable at this level. The English struck mercilessly:
- 27 minutes: With a corner kick variation, the guests play Youri Tielemans free at the far post, YB is asleep. The Belgian still has time to receive the ball and scores confidently to make it 1-0.
- 38 minutes: After a Villa attack, Mohamed Camara gets the ball in the penalty area. Instead of clearing it, he passes it back (too short) to his colleague David von Ballmoos. He then falls to Ollie Watkins – but the penalty does not even have to be given because Jacob Ramsey is lurking and scores. The Bernese look very bad again.
- 45 minutes: YB is left dizzy with another counterattack. Watkins first hits Banhie Zoukrou and then hits the goal with his follow-up shot. Fortunately from Bern’s point of view: After VAR intervention, the referee decides that Watkins handled the ball between the two shots and disallows the goal.
This is how it continues
From the biggest possible stage, the Young Boys are heading back to everyday league life and to Winterthur (on Sunday). There, coach Patrick Rahmen’s team hopes to finally score its first victory in the Super League. Next up in the Champions League is a guest appearance at the big Barcelona (October 1).