In their first year back in the Swiss Super League, FC Thun are on course to win their first ever top-flight title. We look at what makes Mauro Lustrinelli’s side so good.
You get very few firsts in football these days.
That is especially the case in Switzerland, where, since the launch of the Super League in 2003, only three clubs have won the top-flight title. Each of the 22 completed seasons of the Swiss Super League to date have been won by either Basel (12), Young Boys (6) or FC Zürich (4).
However, with eight matchdays remaining in 2025-26, there is set to be a new victor.
FC Thun have not only never won the Super League, they haven’t won any iteration of the Swiss top flight since they were formed in 1898. In fact, they haven’t even won a Swiss Cup. So, excluding their two second-tier title wins, Thun are on course to lift their first ever major piece of silverware.
Managed by former Switzerland international Mauro Lustrinelli, they have a 16-point lead after 30 games, needing just nine more from their final eight matches to clinch a historic first top-flight title.
Photo courtesy of FC Thun/Levin AnnelerWhat makes their likely achievement even more remarkable is that this time last year, Thun weren’t even in the Super League. After relegation to the Challenge League (second tier) in 2019-20, it took them five years to get promoted again, which they achieved last season.
The town of Thun has a population of just over 44,000 people in the canton of Bern, while the club’s stadium, Stockhorn Arena, holds just 10,000, making it the third-smallest in the Swiss Super League.
If you think you’ve heard the name before, that could be because in the 2005-06 season, Thun were in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. Following their best-ever league finish (second in 2004-05), the club managed to get past Dynamo Kyiv and Malmö FF to make it to the group stage of Europe’s biggest club competition.
They ultimately finished third in the group behind Arsenal and Ajax, but the fact they placed ahead of Sparta Prague – who they beat 1-0 at home – was a terrific achievement for the club. They came close to drawing twice against Arsenal, too. First, at Highbury, a stoppage-time winner from Dennis Bergkamp earned the Premier League side a 2-1 win. It then took an 88th-minute penalty from Robert Pires to give the Gunners a 1-0 victory in the reverse fixture.
Arsenal’s Thierry Henry tries to shoot in front of FC Thun’s Selver Hodsic during their UEFA Champions League Group B match on 22 November 2005. Photo by AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINIThun were also unlucky to lose 4-2 at home to Ajax, with the sides level at 2-2 until two stoppage-time goals for the Dutch giants.
Just two years after locking horns with Arsenal in the Champions League, Thun were relegated. However, they soon bounced back and earned a place in the Europa League qualifiers in 2011-12, before being dumped out 5-1 on aggregate by Stoke City in the play-off round.
They at least stayed in the top flight for the remainder of the decade, only to drop back into the second tier at the end of 2019-20 following a promotion/relegation play-off defeat to Vaduz.
Lustrinelli was part of the Thun squad that took part in that Champions League campaign 20 years ago, scoring in the home defeat to Ajax. He was appointed as manager in 2022 and was clear in his ambition to get the club back to their glory days.
Despite how quickly they’ve gone from the Challenge League to likely Super League champions, this was not a rapid process. Lustrinelli’s first season led to a sixth-place finish in the second tier, their lowest in 14 years. However, they finished second in 2023-24, an agonising three points behind champions Sion, before losing the promotion/relegation play-off game against Grasshoppers.
They made up for it last season, though, easing to the title, finishing 11 points ahead of second-placed FC Aarau.
This season, Lustrinelli’s side took to the Super League as if they had never left it, winning their first four league games in 2025-26, including a 4-0 victory away at FC Zürich. By the winter break, Thun were top of the league (W13 D1 L5), with a three-point advantage over St. Gallen in second.
Just as questions were being asked about whether they could keep up that form, they pressed down further on the accelerator. Between Matchday 18 and 27, they won 10 games in a row, the fourth-longest winning streak in Super League history.
Thun have won 12 of their last 13 league games (D1), including a 5-1 thrashing of Grasshoppers in their last outing. That seemed somewhat symbolic, not just because it was a measure of revenge for their play-off defeat in 2023-24, but because, despite not being the force they once were, Grasshoppers have won the most Swiss top-flight titles in history (27). Thun are closing in on their first, and swept aside their highly decorated opponents with ease along the way.
Thun’s 71 points is the fifth-best tally by any team after 30 games of a Super League season; the last team to have as many at this stage of a campaign were 2018-19 champions Young Boys with 78 points). No promoted side have ever recorded more than 60 points in a Super League season.
While Thun are on course to become just the fourth club to win the Super League since its inaugural season in 2003-04, they would become the 20th different club overall to win the Swiss top flight.
So, how have they managed to get here?
Lustrinelli likes his team to press high, and they certainly do that. Thun have recorded the most high turnovers in the Swiss Super League this season (285), and the most goal-ending high turnovers (7).
They also have the lowest average PPDA (opposition passes allowed per defensive action), which is a measurement of how aggressive a team’s press is. The lower the average, the more aggressive their press is. Thun’s PPDA of 8.7 is the same as Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, who have the joint-lowest of teams in Europe’s top five leagues.
They have also made the most pressed sequences (500) in the Swiss top flight. These are sequences that Thun have started in the opposition’s defensive third, after their opposition have attempted a move containing three or fewer passes and lost the ball in their own half.
With the ball, they have scored the most direct-attack goals (6) – open-play sequences that start just inside their own half and have at least 50% of movement towards the opposition’s goal and end in a goal.
There’s an awful lot of numbers and definitions there, but in summary, they are aggressive and direct both on and off the ball.
As you can see from the team styles graphic below, Thun are among the most direct teams in the Swiss league. They have the highest direct speed upfield (2.4 m/s) and the third-lowest average passes per sequence in the Swiss league (2.2).
They do not mess around when they have the ball. They want to get forward as soon as possible.
It is a real team effort, too. This isn’t a story of a team being carried to success by one or two outstanding players. Thun have six players who have scored at least five goals in the Super League this season; no other team has more than four.
Their top scorer is Elmin Rastoder with 12 goals, the joint-fourth most in the league, but they also have Christopher Ibayi and Leonardo Bertone on nine each, and Ethan Meichtry on eight.
Rastoder leads from the front as a good all-rounder. As well as scoring goals, no player has won possession in the opposition final third more than him (29) and only four players in the league have created more chances from open play than his 45.
Only four players in the Swiss top flight have more assists than full-back Fabio Fehr (7) this season, and only Basel’s Xherdan Shaqiri (3.8) averages more chances created per 90 than Fehr (3.0).
Kastriot Imeri, on loan from Young Boys, has six goals and six assists from 23 games. His 0.49 assists per 90 is the second most in the division of players to have at least 10 appearances this season.
As well as his nine goals, midfielder Bertone comfortably leads the way in the Super League for passes into the opponent’s final third (336), with centre-back Marko Bürki recording the third most (251).
As you can see from their pass maps below, they are largely balls into the channels. That eagerness to get the ball into the final third as quickly and often as possible is a big part of their aggressive approach.
Thun have been productive and efficient at both ends of the pitch. They have scored the most goals (71) and conceded the fewest (33) in the Swiss Super League this season, and have outperformed their expected goals (xG) at both ends significantly.
Lustrinelli’s men have scored 71 goals from 59 xG (+12.0) and conceded 33 goals from 45.4 xG against (-12.4), both the biggest overperformances in the league.
Their 71 goals scored after 30 Super League matches is the most by a team in the competition since Young Boys in 2018-19 (79).
Graphic excludes one own goalLustrinell does not appear to believe his team needs to control games, instead preferring to ask as many questions of the opposition as possible via high pressing and direct passing. Thun average 46.1% possession in games this season, with only three Super League teams averaging less.
You can see from their zones of control map below how few areas of the pitch they have the majority of touches of the ball.
As a result, their games are quite open. Thun have attempted the most shots (528) of any team, but only three have allowed more shots at their own goal (452), keeping Niklas Steffen busy between the sticks.
The Thun goalkeeper has conceded 32 goals from 41.5 xGOT this season, preventing 9.5 goals, second only to Basel’s Marwin Hitz (10.7). Steffen is a major reason why Thun have significantly overperformed their defensive numbers this campaign.
While winning their first ever top-flight title is probably enough of an indication that Thun are having a very good season, they have also rocketed up the Opta Power Rankings.
When Lustrinelli took over in July 2022, Thun were outside the world’s top 1,500 men’s teams. By the start of this season, they were up to 713th following their promotion. Now they are 195th, just six places behind Bundesliga side FC Köln.
They could clinch the title before Matchday 34 when the Super League splits in two, if they can secure victories in their next three games against Zürich, Lugano and Basel.
Surely it is a matter of when, not if, and Thun winning the league would not only be historic in the sense that it will be their first, but it will also mean they enter the Champions League at the second qualifying round stage next season.
Lustrinelli said he wanted to bring back the glory days to FC Thun. He’s on course to give them the best days in their 128-year history.
(Banner image courtesy of FC Thun/Levin Anneler)
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