Super League, Matchday 1, Saturday, 26.07.2025 at 18:00
The champions are not opening the new season and don’t even have a home game on the first matchday! FC Basel fans must have been somewhat disappointed with the schedule, as they were the ones celebrating the title a few weeks ago.
The Swiss FCB left everyone behind, which makes it all the more difficult to repeat this performance. In my St. Gallen FC Basel tip, I am now accompanying the defending champions into the new season. What makes me place a rather cautious double chance bet on X2 with over 1.5 goals? Find out now!
The celebrations were huge. FC Basel secured the 2025 championship with a six-point lead, and they deserved it! In the end, they finished with a goal difference of +40. Lucerne, second in this category, finished with +10.
This quickly shows that Basel performed at the very top in absolutely every category. With 72 goals scored and 32 conceded, no one came close. They ended the last ten games of the season with nine wins and 34 goals.
Exciting: The 2024/25 season had actually started with two defeats. But the defending champions cannot afford a false start this time around. They will have to adapt, if only because they have a new coach in Ludovic Magnin, who won the championship with VfB Stuttgart in 2007.
The departures of Leon Avdullahu (Hoffenheim) and Axel Kayombo (Sturm Graz) will not be easy to compensate for, and Taulant Xhaka has also ended his career. However, the Swiss champions have not really made their mark on the transfer market so far.
Striker Philip Otele has been signed on a permanent deal, and Keigo Tsunemoto has been brought in from Geneva. The team has not looked particularly strong in the weeks of preparation, as they will be well aware in Basel.
At least the recent 3-3 draw against Villarreal was something for the neutral spectator to enjoy. 1-1 against Schaffhausen, 1-1 against FC Wil, 1-1 against Winterthur, 4-2 against Rapperswil-Jona and 1-1 against Altach?
The Basel team particularly enjoyed the draws during the test phase. But of course, I also notice that they didn’t keep a clean sheet once.
The odds for Saturday’s BTS bet are correspondingly low, with Oddset offering only 1.60. But if you register here as a new customer, you can secure a bonus of up to $100 on top of your first deposit.
Let’s take a look at what has happened between Basel and St. Gallen in recent years. FCB has lost only two of the last 13 matches, which is a strong point.
It is also important to note that there has only been one game in which neither side scored during this period. However, I must also point out that Basel has not won an away game against St. Gallen in almost four years.
2:2, 1:1, 1:2, 1:6, 1:1, 2:2 – these are the most recent results in the Super League. If you want to bet on the double chance 1X, you can do so at odds of 1.75 at Oddset.
In St. Gallen, they will be well aware that their last home games against Basel were not that bad. The Green and Whites want to start the new season as well as they did in 2024. A year ago, they won their first three home games in a row.
Exciting: They also tested themselves against Villarreal a few days ago – and a 2-2 draw is certainly no worse than Basel’s 3-3. The fans had been far less satisfied when they went home before that.
2:4 against Darmstadt and 0:1 against Schalke, plus the 4:4 against Brühl, that doesn’t exactly show the defense in the best light. However, I can report that St. Gallen was considered strong at home in 2024/25.
They only lost twice, which is impressive. Coach Enrico Maaßen, former coach of FC Augsburg, has stayed on, but Felix Mambini and Konrad Faber have left.
Lukas Daschner has joined from Bochum, and Tom Gaal (Ulm) and Carlo Boukhalfa (St. Pauli) are also familiar faces.
FC Basel has big plans for the 2025/26 season: it wants to defend its championship title. Last season, FCB impressed me in every aspect, both defensively and offensively. However, not everything went smoothly during the preseason.
The defense in particular still needs time – I noticed the same thing with St. Gallen. For this reason, and also because the last direct encounters at Kybun Park were very exciting, I’m going for over 1.5 goals.
Since I don’t believe that the visitors will want to start the season without any points as defending champions, and since there haven’t been many defeats against the Green and Whites in recent years, I’m adding an extra to my bet and predicting a total of:
Basel will score over 1.5 goals!
