Swiss teams booted out of Uefa Cup
All three Swiss football teams who qualified for the Uefa Cup – Young Boys, Bellinzona and FC Zurich – have been eliminated from the competition in the first round.
Three games, three defeats, one goal – Thursday's result is a bitter pill for Swiss football, adding to a spate of poor results this season.
Zurich lost 1-0 to AC Milan – 4-1 on aggregate – while Young Boys of Bern failed to shine in a 2-0 defeat to Bruges, going down 4-2 on aggregate. Bellinzona faced Galatasaray in Istanbul where they lost 2-1, the impressive 6-4 aggregate scoreline counting for nothing.
The Uefa Cup is the second-most important international competition for European football clubs after the Uefa Champions League, for which Basel is Switzerland's sole representative.
On Wednesday Basel lost their second match in Group C of the Champions League against Sporting of Portugal. The away defeat leaves the Swiss champions with no points at the bottom of their group.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.