Basel U20

1 Nov 2026
Sunday
Process
13 Edition

The Basel Courier

26 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match

A European night to remember for Basel

1‑0 against Universitatea Craiova, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.

Market

Metinho asks to leave Basel

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Player ratings

Julien Duranville runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

Match

The drought breaks for Basel

10 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Universitatea Craiova were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.

The terraces

One of their own: Malamine Efekele

He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.

The dugout

The manager makes an example of Niklas Hedl

“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.

Match

Grasshopper take the points off Basel

Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.

Match

Basel come up short against FC Copenhagen

FC Copenhagen left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.

Player ratings

One of those days for Philip Otele

There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.10, and no argument anywhere in the ground.

In brief

Back issues
12 Edition

The Basel Courier

19 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Crisis

Match

The wait goes on for Basel

8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.

Squad

Tempers go at Basel

Gaëtan Laborde was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.

Match

A bad afternoon for Basel against Vaduz

0‑1 to Vaduz, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.

Boardroom

Nobody left the Basel dressing room in a hurry

The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.

Player ratings

Malamine Efekele beats them one at a time

Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.

Squad

Benji Siegrist falls out with a teammate over standards

The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.

The dugout

The manager’s verdict

“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Cedric Rodriguez left the room before anybody could ask which.

The dugout

The manager makes an example of Vasilije Janjičić

“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.

The dugout

When it matters, Hakim Guenouche plays

It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.

In brief

11 Edition

The Basel Courier

12 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match

The wait goes on for Basel

7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Kazeem Olaigbe

Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Squad

Gaëtan Laborde in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Basel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Market

Djibril Freuler steps up from the Basel academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Djibril Freuler has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.

Player ratings

Ninety minutes of Gaëtan Laborde at his very best

Marked 8.25. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Basel.

Match

Two points walk out of the ground

Level with 94 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Basel had all but put away. Lugano will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.

Squad

A row about effort at Basel

Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benji Siegrist was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.

Squad

15 new faces, and Basel are still learning each other

A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.

Loan watch

Ruben Rieder has seen enough of Grasshopper

“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Basel, and 0 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.

In brief

10 Edition

The Basel Courier

5 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match

Basel do the business in Europe

0‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Basel came through the finding-out well against Olimpija Ljubljana.

Match

Basel are in among the leaders

Position 2 and 18 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.

Match

The wait goes on for Basel

6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.

Player ratings

Philip Otele runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

Player ratings

Xherdan Shaqiri, 35, rolls back the years — 7.96

There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.

Squad

Niklas Hedl pulls a muscle — 15 days out

The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.

Squad

A falling-out at Basel

Gaëtan Laborde and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Match

Basel come up short against Universitatea Craiova

Universitatea Craiova left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.

Squad

Jonas Harder signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jonas Harder and Basel agree another 5 years.

In brief

9 Edition

The Basel Courier

28 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Admir Widmer damages knee ligaments — 19 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 19 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.

Market

Metinho hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Basel can pretend not to have heard.

Player ratings

Julien Duranville was unplayable

Successful dribbles: 30. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.

Squad

Tempers go at Basel

Xherdan Shaqiri was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.

Match

Basel at the halfway mark

Half the programme played, position 2, 17 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.

Squad

Words at Basel training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benji Siegrist is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.

Player ratings

Žan Celar stands above it all

Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.75 on the card, and the Basel support went home talking about one name.

The dugout

The manager makes an example of Kevin Rüegg

“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.

The dugout

Gaëtan Laborde gets picked when it counts

Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Gaëtan Laborde is on it.

In brief

8 Edition

The Basel Courier

21 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

The knee: Admir Widmer out for 27 days

27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Basel lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.

Match

Fulham take Basel apart in Europe

0‑5. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.

Squad

A one-man rearguard from Niklas Hedl

There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.

Player ratings

Vintage Xherdan Shaqiri — 8.66

At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.66, and nobody on the pitch better.

Squad

Words exchanged at Basel

Xherdan Shaqiri and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.

Match

Basel come up short against Braga

Braga left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.

The terraces

Basel supporters have found a favourite in Metinho

There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Metinho has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.

Match

Basel get the job done against Thun

A 2‑0 win over Thun, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.

Player ratings

Ninety minutes of Philip Otele at his very best

Marked 8.27. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Basel.

In brief

  • Looking ahead All roads lead to Zurich
  • The dugout No place for Xherdan Shaqiri on the big day
  • Boardroom Nobody left the Basel dressing room in a hurry
7 Edition

The Basel Courier

14 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Match

A derby to forget for Basel

Beaten 0‑3 by Young Boys in the one fixture where losing is not allowed. The football was bad enough; the week ahead will be worse.

Squad

A move Vasilije Janjičić would have made for nothing

There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Vasilije Janjičić is living that version at Basel, and it tends to show in the first month.

Player ratings

Kazeem Olaigbe runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

Market

Basel promote Remo Widmer from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Remo Widmer has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.

Market

One of our own: Ricardo Rodriguez joins the Basel first team

Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ricardo Rodriguez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.

Boardroom

Doors closed at Basel

The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.

The dugout

Cedric Rodriguez answers for it

“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.

The dugout

Benji Siegrist gets it from the manager

“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.

The dugout

Metinho has become a man the manager trusts

Nobody at Basel will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.

In brief

6 Edition

The Basel Courier

7 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Match

Basel refuse to drop out of the race

Position 2, 13 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.

Player ratings

Kazeem Olaigbe beats them one at a time

Successful dribbles: 26. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.

Boardroom

Deadline passes with 23 signed and 5 gone

That is the business done at Basel until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.

Transfer targets

Deadline beats Basel to Ashvin Balaruban

The clock did what Thun would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.

Match

Xherdan Shaqiri sends Basel past Luzern

It finished 2‑0, and it was Xherdan Shaqiri’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Basel.

Player ratings

Ninety minutes of Gaëtan Laborde at his very best

Marked 8.66. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Basel.

Looking ahead

The neighbours are next for Basel

Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Young Boys on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.

Squad

International break empties Basel

5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.

Squad

Words at Basel training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benji Siegrist is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.

In brief

5 Edition

The Basel Courier

31 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

16 days out for Niklas Hedl after a fracture

A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Basel will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.

Market

Basel sell Ibrahim Salah for $9.3M

Ibrahim Salah has left for Grasshopper in a $9.3M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.

The terraces

Basel sell a favourite for $9.3M

The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Ibrahim Salah was one of the reasons people came, and $9.3M does not replace that by itself.

Market

Basel pay Rapid Wien $2.6M for a proper upgrade

Rapid Wien did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $2.6M for Niklas Hedl, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Julien Duranville

Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Transfer targets

Basel rebuffed over Justin Roth

Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Thun have kept their man, and Basel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.

Squad

A move Hakim Guenouche would have made for nothing

There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Hakim Guenouche is living that version at Basel, and it tends to show in the first month.

Transfer targets

An offer of $750.0K for Ashvin Balaruban

Basel have gone to Thun with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.

Squad

Words exchanged at Basel

Gaëtan Laborde and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.

In brief

4 Edition

The Basel Courier

24 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Player ratings

Kazeem Olaigbe beats them one at a time

Successful dribbles: 35. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.

Transfer targets

Too dear: Basel walk away from Christos Zafeiris

$13.6M was the most the club would pay and PAOK were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.

Market

Terms done: Ruben Rieder is going

Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Grasshopper waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Basel is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.

Transfer targets

An offer of $2.6M for Niklas Hedl

Basel have gone to Rapid Wien with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.

Transfer targets

Door shut on Fabio Fehr

Basel asked and Thun said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.

Market

Olympique Akbou come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Basel did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

Market

Metinho attracts admirers

The name of Metinho has come up in conversations Basel were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.

Squad

A falling-out at Basel

Metinho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Market

Grasshopper are about to pick up the phone

A conversation is coming this week. Basel will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.

In brief

3 Edition

The Basel Courier

17 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Transfer targets

An offer of $13.6M for Christos Zafeiris

Basel have gone to PAOK with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.

Squad

Gaëtan Laborde arrives at the club he grew up with

Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Gaëtan Laborde has, at Basel, and the first month will show what that does to a man.

Market

Basel spend $3.0M to raise the standard

This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.0M has been paid because Gaëtan Laborde is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.

Transfer targets

Basel rebuffed over Mattia Zanotti

Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lugano have kept their man, and Basel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.

Transfer targets

Basel baulk at the price for Anthony Racioppi

Sion wanted more than $2.8M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.

Market

Basel sign Malamine Efekele for $1.3M

The paperwork is done: Malamine Efekele joins from St. Gallen in a deal worth $1.3M. Now comes the harder part.

Market

Grasshopper join the queue for Ibrahim Salah

Add another name to the list: Grasshopper have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ibrahim Salah. The answer from Basel has not changed — yet.

Market

Business is business: Andrej Bačanin goes

Union Berlin paid $1.5M and Basel took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.

Squad

Giacomo Koloto signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Giacomo Koloto and Basel agree another 5 years.

In brief

2 Edition

The Basel Courier

10 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Triumph

Match

Basel win it in stoppage time

The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Lugano will replay every second of the added time for a week.

Market

Basel say no — this time

The offer from Luzern for Metinho was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.

Transfer targets

Fee done, terms next for Malamine Efekele

Basel and St. Gallen have settled on $1.3M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.

Transfer targets

Gaëtan Laborde due for a Basel medical

Everything agreed with Al-Diriyah, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.

Transfer targets

An offer of $4.9M for Mattia Zanotti

Basel have gone to Lugano with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.

Player ratings

No sign of nerves from Giacomo Koloto at 18 — 7.74

The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Giacomo Koloto did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.

Transfer targets

An offer of $2.8M for Anthony Racioppi

Basel have gone to Sion with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.

Squad

Bećir Omeragić signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bećir Omeragić and Basel agree another 4 years.

Squad

A falling-out at Basel

Bećir Omeragić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

In brief

1 Edition

The Basel Courier

3 Aug 2026
From our football correspondent Triumph

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Kazeem Olaigbe

Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Transfer targets

An offer of $1.7M for Ferland Mendy

Basel have gone to Real Madrid with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.

Squad

Karim Onisiwo gets the move he always wanted

Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Karim Onisiwo has just signed for Basel, and for once the answer mattered.

Market

Basel may not be able to give Metinho what he wants

It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Metinho wants continental football; whether Basel can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.

Squad

Xherdan Shaqiri signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Xherdan Shaqiri and Basel agree another 2 years.

Squad

Tempers go at Basel

Metinho was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.

Market

Benji Siegrist is a Basel player again

He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.

Match

Koba Koindredi sends Basel past Sion

It finished 2‑1, and it was Koba Koindredi’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Basel.

The terraces

The crowd has taken to Giacomo Koloto

At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.

In brief