User:Huligan0/2020–21 FC Basel season

The 2020–21 season will be FC Basel's 127th season in existence and the club's 26th consecutive season in the top flight of Swiss football since their promotion in the 1993–94 season. The 2020–21 Swiss Super League season starts on the week-end 19/20 September 2020 and will end on 21 May 2021. In addition to the domestic league, Basel will participate in this season's Swiss Cup and UEFA Europa League.

Management
On 26 August the club announced that Ciriaco Sforza had been hired as the first team manager as of 1 September 2020. He had previously been head coach of FC Wil and he brought his assistant Daniel Hasler with him. Massimo Colomba stayed with the club as Goalkeeper Coach.

Youth coach Alex Frei had previously been trainer of the U-18 team and moved up to the U-21, but due to differences with the club managers he quit is job on 24 August.

Further information
The club's 126th AGM is planed to take place in October 2020. The board of directors until this date under president Bernhard Burgener are: CEO Roland Heri, financial manager Peter von Büren, marketing manager Patrick Jost, as well as Reto Baumgartner, Dominik Donzé and Benno Kaiser. Ruedi Zbinden had been sportdirector the previous year, but resigned on 18 August and returned to his previous job as chef scout.

Off and pre-season
There were only a few changes in the squad during the summer break. Zdravko Kuzmanović, Kevin Bua and Ricky van Wolfswinkel left the club because their contracts were not renewed. Edon Zhegrova left because his loan had ended. Then on 12 August the club announced that Jonas Omlin was transferred out to Montpellier.

In the other direction Arthur Cabral, who had been on loan, was taken over definately from Palmeiras.

Domestic League
The season starts on the weekend of 19/20 September 2020. Basel's priority aim for the new season is to win the league championship. On Monday 31 August 2020 the Swiss Football League (SFL) published the schedule for the Raiffeisen Super League 2020–21. FCB start the new season on Sunday 20 September with the home game against FC Vaduz in St. Jakob-Park. In a first step, the SFL published the schedule for the first 18 rounds, but only fixed times for the first nine rounds. The final schedule with all games will follow by the end of the year.

Domestic Cup
Basel's clear aim for the cup is to win the title. The first round of the this seasons Swiss Cup was played on the week-end 28/29/30 August and the second round will be played on the week-end 11-13 September 2020. Teams engaged in UEFA competitions received a bye in this round and therefore Basel enter the competition in the third round.

Europa League
Basel were qualified for the UEFA Europa League and start in the qualifying phase second qualifying round. The draw for the second qualifying round was held on 31 August and Basel were drawn away against Osijek of Croatia.

First team squad
The following is the list of the Basel first team squad. It also includes players that were in the squad the day the season started on 19 September 2020 but subsequently left the club after that date.

Results and fixtures
Kickoff times are in CET.

Swiss Cup
The draw for the first round was held in August 2020. The Super League and Challenge League clubs were seeded and could not be drawn against each other. The lower division teams were granted home advantage and therefore Basel were drawn with an away match. The home advantage was also granted to the teams from the lower league in the second and third rounds.