Lugano produced a commanding display to beat Zürich 5-0 in the Swiss Super League regular season on Sunday. The result extends the hosts' perfect start to six wins from six matches. Zürich remain in eighth place with seven points from seven games.
K. Behrens opened the scoring in the thirty-fourth minute, and the lead was doubled before half-time when R. Steffen struck in the fifty-second. B. Krasniqi came off for Zürich in the forty-fourth, and Lugano's E. Pihlstrom followed in the sixty-second. By then the match had settled into a pattern the visitors could not disrupt.
D. Dos Santos added a third in the seventy-ninth minute, and D. Moncada rounded off the scoring in the eighty-ninth. Steffen was substituted in the eightieth, and U. Bislimi had already come on for Lugano in the seventieth. And here's the thing — Zürich's goalkeeper made only three saves all evening.
Yellow cards for S. Hodza, V. Berisha and L. Comenencia marked a match where Zürich rarely threatened. Eight shots on target against one tells you everything about the imbalance. Lugano completed 559 passes to their opponents' 336, and held possession at 62 per cent.
The statistics are stark. Lugano created four big chances compared to three for Zürich, and their shot accuracy of 50 per cent dwarfed the visitors' 11 per cent. Ten dribbles and fifteen key passes showed how comfortably the hosts controlled the game.
Lugano now sit top of the table with eighteen points, while Zürich have suffered their fourth defeat in seven outings. The result does nothing to suggest the visitors can climb out of the lower reaches. To be fair, the gap between the sides has been widening for a while.