I posted this in the CL Draw Thread after being ask to give a bit of insight into Young Boys, so will post it in here too for those who're interested.
In general it's an interesting club. It starts with the hilarious fact for english people that the club really is called Young Boys and on top of that their Stadium is called "Wankdorf". This was already mocked in 2018 in here and I'm sure will be the case this year as well
The club is based in the capital city of Switzerland and has a huge fanbase with a whole region behind it. Nevertheless, they didn't win anything for over 30 years before 2017/2018 and got mocked in the whole country for squandering chance after chance to do so in a sometimes hilarious way.
But with winning the Swiss "Super League" (yes it really is called like this) they finally won the first title after over 30 years in 2017/2018 and never looked back. With very good squad and financial management and clever transfers they've won every title since then.
They also played very good football under former manager Gerardo Seoano, who moved to Bayer Leverkusen this summer. It was high press, high intensity football with a lot of chances created and a lot of goals scored. I haven't seen enough of them since the start of the current season, but the choore of the team remains the same and with David Wagner (ex Huddersfield & Schalke) they have an experienced manager in charge now. From what I have seen, they play a bit more conservativ, posession based style under him so far, but as I said, haven't seen enough yet to have a definite opinion.
As for the players, it's a good mix between homegrown and foreign players. They have three players who got a call-up for the swiss-national team for the current break in Fassnacht, Aebischer and Zesiger. They have a fair few good, rapid foreign forwards/wingers in Jordan Siebatcheu (plays for the US national team), Meschak Elia (plays for Kongo) or Nicolas Ngamaleu (plays for cameroon). Their topscorer of the last two seasons Jean-Pierre Nsame (also cameroon) is currently injured. I'm not sure if he will be fit for any of these games as he torn his achilles tendon in May. But even withouth him, these forwards are certainly good enough to make the difference in Switzerland. And they have the quality to be dangerous in this group as well.
If we get our shit together, we will beat them comfortably in both games. But if we don't, we could be in for a surprise. I also wouldn't be surprised if they give a good fight to Atalanta and Villareal and even get something out of this games, especially in the home games. (
The atmosphere in a packed Wankdorf can be electric.) But all in all, I think they will be too fragile defensively for the quality in this group and will go out bottom of the group. I will certainly root for them when they play Villareal and Atalanta though.
Fred
David de Gea
Bruno Fernandes
Donny van de Beek
Luke Shaw
Jesse Lingard
Aaron Wan-Bissaka
Raphael Varane
Harry Maguire
Victor Lindelof
replaced by Nemanja Matic
replaced by Anthony Martial
replaced by Raphael Varane
replaced by Jesse Lingard
replaced by Diogo Dalot
