Swiss miss: no goal of the month for Basel after drawing blank in October
The Swiss club Basel’s season has gone from bad to worse – and with no goals scored in October, they were unable to announce a goal of the month winner on Tuesday.
In four defeats from four games in October, Basel conceded 10 goals and scored none. That led to the club posting a photo of a goal net and a caption which read “No goals in October = No goal of the month” on their social media accounts on Tuesday.
After a 1-1 draw at home against Luzern on 28 September, Basel have lost 3-0 against Stade Lausanne-Ouchy, Young Boys and Lausanne-Sport, and also endured a 1-0 home defeat by Servette.
The club are bottom of the Swiss league with one win in 11 games, and were also knocked out of the Europa Conference League in the second qualifying round by FC Tobol of Kazakhstan. Last season they reached the semifinals of that competition, before losing against Fiorentina.
Twenty times champions of Switzerland,
Basel won eight titles in a row between 2009-10 and 2016-17 but have fallen into decline in recent years. They finished fifth in the league last season, their lowest position since 2001. This term, five points adrift with just five points on the board, they appear to be at very real risk of relegation.
Heiko Vogel, who returned to the dugout last season and again this term after the sacking of Timo Schulz, has paid the price for the barren October run, with the club announcing his departure on Tuesday. The former Sion manager Fabio Celestini was then announced as the new head coach on his 48th birthday.
Celestini will hope for a good start when Basel take on the third-tier side SC Kriens in the Swiss Cup, a competition where Basel have scored 16 goals in the previous two rounds – beating Saint-Blaise 8-1 and Bosporus 8-0. That should give them a decent chance of at least having some goals to choose from in November.