Europa League Lowdown: Young Boys

YOUNG BOYS
League Position: 3rd in Swiss Super League
Recent Form: DWWDW

Their season so far: While Roma earned their spot in Group A courtesy of last-season’s fifth-place finish in Serie A, Young Boys originally entered Champions League qualifying after clinching a third successive Swiss Super League title in 2019-20.

Having beaten KI Klaksvik of the Faroe Islands in the second round, Young Boys were knocked out by Danes FC Midtjylland and dropped into the Europa League, where they still had to overcome Albanian outfit KF Tirana to reach the group stage.

It’s meant for a busy start to 2020-21 for coach Gerry Seoane and his men, who have gone four games unbeaten at the start of the new domestic campaign (W2, D2) and conceded just once in the league so far.

Seoane has typically preferred his side to set up in a 4-4-2 formation but has also toyed with a 3-4-2-1 that Roma fans will know well since Paulo Fonseca’s successful switch to the tactic at the end of last season.

The hosts are set to be without Ali Camara and Ulisses Garcia who are both in isolation due to coronavirus, with the former contracting the virus alongside Roma’s Amadou Diawara while on international duty with Guinea earlier this month.

Roma will need to pay close attention to former Ajax man Miralem Sulejmani and Cameroon striker Jean-Pierre Nsame - who scored 32 goals in 32 league games last year and has four in seven in all competitions at the start of 2020-21 - as well as the unfamiliar conditions of the synthetic pitch at the Wankdorf.

What they've said:

"We face three opponents who are used to winning in the national championships. The hierarchy in the group is of course led by Roma, a top European team with outstanding players.” - Coach Gerry Seoane

"AS Roma is the clear favorite to win the group, anything seems possible behind them. We don't want to speculate, we want to concentrate on our performance.

"We always approach the sporting tasks with great ambition and believe in our chances of surviving the group stage.” - Sporting director Christoph Spycher