FC Basel - last updated on 10 December 2007
(Courtesy of Johnny Beaufays)
Club name: Fussballclub Basel 1893
Foundation: November 15th 1893
City: Basel
Colours: Blue and red
Website: www.fcb.ch
Honours:
Swiss League - 11 (1953, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1980, 2002, 2004, 2005)
Swiss Cup - 8 (1933, 1947, 1963, 1967, 1975, 2002, 2003, 2007)
Swiss League Cup - 1 (1973)
Copa Delle Alpi - 3 (1969, 1970, 1981)
A bit of history:
FC Basel was started by an advertisement on the 12 November 1893 that appeared in the Basler national newspaper requesting that a football team be formed and that anyone that wished to join should meet up the next Wednesday at 8:15. So, on the 15th of November 1893, FC Basel was born in the city of Basel, Switzerland. FC Basel did not have much of an early footballing success; it took Basel 40 years to win their first trophy, winning the Swiss Cup in 1933. They also won the cup in 1947 and then the league in 1953.
FCB (which is pronounced "Eff Tsay Bay" in Swiss German) was most successful in the 1960s and 1970s winning the Swiss championship seven times (1967, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1980) and the national Cup three times (1963, 1967, 1975). They also won the League Cup in 1973 and the Coppa delle Alpi consecutively in 1969 and 1970. In those days, they were a dominant force in Switzerland and they were major competitors in Europe also.
In the 1980s they had to play in the Nationalliga B (the second highest League in Switzerland). They had fallen away and were only a shadow of the Basel team from the 60s and 70s. In 1994, they were promoted back into the Nationalliga A (the highest League) and have since proved that they belong there by winning numerous league titles and cups, not to mention their successful campaigns in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup.
When St. Jakob-Park was opened in 2001, success returned. In 2002 the FCB won the Double (Swiss Championship and Swiss Cup).In the following season they were the second Swiss team to ever play in the Champions League. Among others, they also defeated Celtic, Liverpool, Deportivo La Coruña and Juventus. They also won the league in the 2003/04 and 2004/05 seasons. In the 2004/05 season they got to the quarter-final of the UEFA Cup, being defeated by Middlesbrough who then went on to the final. In the last 2 seasons Basel have narrowly missed out on winning the league, last season they were 1 point behind the champions, FC Zürich
On May 13th, 2006, the FCB lost a league game in the St. Jakob-Park for the first time since December 1st, 2002, when they fell 1:2 against FC Zürich, resulting in riots and property damage by hooligans of both the FCB and their rival after the match.(see 2006 Basel Hooligan Incident for more details.) On February 26, 2006 FC Basel broke their own club record of 52 unbeaten league games in the St. Jakob Park. The new record is 59, but the streak ended there on the final day of the season with a last-minute goal by Iulian Filipescu of FC Zürich, knocking Basel out of contention and giving Zürich their first national championship since 1980/81. A sixtieth straight home league match undefeated would have made Basel champions once again, but the final score was 1:2 in favor of Zürich.
At the beginning of the 2007/08 season FC Basel strengthened their team by signing Swiss internationalists Marco Streller from VfB Stuttgart, Benjamin Huggel from Eintracht Frankfurt and David Degen on loan from Borussia Mönchengladbach. Highly rated Switzerland Under-21 defender Beg Ferati,21, will arrive at St. Jakob-Park in January from feeder club FC Concordia Basel on a three-and-a-half year contract. Fans' favorite Mladen Petrić joined Borussia Dortmund in a big-money deal and influential defender Boris Smiljanić returned to his former club Grasshopper. Basel were drawn against Bosnian minnows FK Sarajevo in the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup, a tie that Basel won 8-1 on aggregate. In the next round Basel faced a considerabley tougher opponent in the form of SV Mattersburg of Austria. Nonetheless, Basel finished the tie off with a 4-0 away win after a 2-1 victory at St. Jakob-Park. Basel were then drawn into a 'death group' of Group D alongside SK Brann, NK Dinamo Zagreb, Hamburger SV and Stade Rennais FC, all of which were ranked withing the top 3 of their own leagues at the start of the stage. Basel won their first UEFA Cup group game against Rennes at home 1-0 thanks to a Marco Streller header. Their next game was away to Dinamo Zagreb in which Basel earned a valuable away point thanks to on form goalkeeper Franco Costanzo who kept the game at 0-0 for 90 minutes. They then faced Brann at St. Jakob-Park where they won 1-0 through a Carlitos free-kick and were highly praised for playing attractive and flowing football.
Club crests: (roll on the crest to get more informations)
FC Basel -
Founded on November 15th 1893
