St Gallen vs. Winterthur

St Gallen are six places ahead of FC Winterthur in the Swiss Super League table heading into Saturday’s gameweek three clash at Kybunpark.

While Espen are unblemished after two top-flight games, the visitors, who finished the 2024-25 campaign in 10th place, are winless at the start of the season, continuing the struggles from the previous term.

Match preview

St Gallen have surprisingly commenced the 2025-26 season in impressive form, claiming two wins from two, largely due to their tendency to outscore their opponents.

Espen stunned Basel 2-1 in the top-flight’s opening weekend and netted four in August 2’s 4-1 victory over Servette, thus ending the opening two rounds as one of only three teams with a 100% record — alongside Sion and Thun.

St Gallen’s start was perhaps unexpected, given that Enrico Maassen’s side failed to keep clean sheets in all four pre-season fixtures, with two draws against Bruhl (4-4) and Villarreal (2-2) book-ending losses to Schalke (1-0) and Darmstadt (4-2).

Although their inability to keep clean sheets persists, Espen’s six-match streak without one has not harmed them in rounds one and two, and last year’s eighth-placed team are aiming for three consecutive league wins for the first time in a year — since beating Young Boys (4-0), Lausanne (4-3) and Grasshoppers (1-0) from July to August 2024.

However, a poor record against this weekend’s visitors may threaten those hopes, considering Espen have not beaten Winterthur since May last year, losing three of their four most recent meetings.

Despite setbacks in gameweeks one and two, the travelling supporters will be aware of their recent positive record against St Gallen, having beaten this weekend’s hosts three times and drawn once.

Most recently, FCW claimed wins in March and May this year – defeating St Gallen 4-0 and 4-1 respectively – and they aim to secure a hat-trick of victories against their opponents for the first time in two years, from March to October 2023.

Those victories were followed by a three-match winless streak in this fixture, with two defeats, before they turned the tide in recent meetings.

Aiming to be third-time lucky after losing 3-2 on opening weekend to Lausanne and drawing 1-1 with Young Boys, Ulrich Forte’s team hope to return to their pre-season form, which saw them record four wins and two draws before the competitive season began.

Having kept three clean sheets in half of their six warm-up matches, Rot-Weiss have also been unable to maintain shutouts in rounds one and two and will hope for a turnaround as they bid to end St Gallen’s winning streak.

St Gallen Swiss Super League form:

FC Winterthur Swiss Super League form:

Team News

Betim Fazliji remains out long-term with a knee injury, while Christian Witzig (shoulder), Lawrence Ati-Zigi, Lukas Daschner and Stephan Ambrosius are sidelined due to muscle issues.

Willem Geubbels has scored 50% of St Gallen’s six goals and will look to add to his three league goals for the early-season leaders.

Fabian Rohner is sidelined with a concussion, while the visitors will assess Roman Buess, Loic Luthi and Sambou Camara.

Adrian Durrer missed last week’s game for Winterthur due to suspension, but the centre-back could return this week after serving his ban.

FCW have had a variety of goalscorers this season, with Brian Beyer, Christian Gomis and Remo Arnold all finding the net; Rot-Weiss hope for decisive contributions from these players or any others to end their winless start.

St Gallen possible starting lineup:

Watkowiak; Gaal, Stanic, May; Vandermersch, Gortler, Neziri, Boukhalfa, Owusu; Vogt, Geubbels

FC Winterthur possible starting lineup:

Kapino; Sahitaj, Arnold, Muhl, Sidler; Jankewitz, Schneider; Ulrich, Zuffi, Beyer; Gomis

We say: St Gallen 2-2 FC Winterthur

Both St Gallen and Winterthur have been prolific scorers since pre-season, a trend that has continued into official matches this season. 

Their attacking prowess is likely to continue on Saturday, resulting in a share of the points at Kybunpark.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.

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