From the Bundesliga to the Super League: A loanee progress report
In the past few years, there have been several players moving from the German Bundesliga to the Swiss Super League. Some of them went for a permanent transfer, but especially for young players, it’s seen as a good next step for getting playing time. Good examples for that have been Noah Katterbach on his loan to Basel or Jovan Milosevic on his stage in St. Gallen.
Last summer, three more talents and their clubs decided in favor of a loan to Switzerland. After more than six months in their clubs, it’s time to have a closer look at them and how they have been performing since then.
Winsley Boteli (19, FC Sion)
Let’s start with a really promising striker: Winsley Boteli. For some years now, the Swiss international is said to be one of the most promising strikers in his age group. In 2022, Boteli joined Borussia M’gladbach and developed greatly in their academy. Even clubs like Juventus were interested in signing him, and Gladbach was at high risk of losing him. In the end, he stayed on the German side, but he struggled a bit in their second team, and the step to the professionals seems to be huge. That’s why they sent him on loan back to Switzerland, more precisely to Sion.
All parties thought Sion might be the best option for gaining some more playing time and developing on a higher level. It can be argued that Gladbach was hoping Boteli would win the battle for starting eleven against the other new striker Rilind Nivokazi, but unfortunately, he lost it, and the Kosovan took the spot.
That’s the reason why, especially Boteli and Gladbach will have mixed feelings over the loan deal so far. Of course, Boteli was part of most of the matches for now, but mostly, he was only playing a couple of minutes in the Super League. In the Swiss Cup, Boteli was more successful than in the league with three goals and one assist, but he was just coming from the bench, too. All in all, all parties will most likely have had higher expectations about that deal, and it will be interesting to see how the second season half is going.
Lovro Zvonarek (20, Grasshoppers Zurich)
Bayern Munich was actually loaning two promising talents to Switzerland, the first one is the offensive midfielder Lovro Zvonarek. Quite early, the young player from Croatia was seen as one of the best talents in the whole country. At the age of just 16 years old, Zvonarek already started to become a starter at Slaven Belupo Koprivnica in the first Croatian league. In the end of the season, he even captained the team and played quite impressively for a player of this age.
No wonder that big clubs reached out to him, his agents, as well as his club and Bayern Munich convinced him about moving to Germany in the end. It needs to be said that Zvonarek struggled a bit in terms of adapting to his new environment, but you could easily see his qualities in the youth and second team there.
After a first loan season in Graz and extremely limited playing time, Zvonarek and Bayern were really careful in finding a better fit for the young player with development opportunities last summer. In the end, Zvonarek went for the popular club Grasshoppers from Zurich.
Despite the overall bad season of the club, Zvonarek was able to achieve a spot in the starting eleven and was playing decent matches. That’s why it feels like this move has been a good solution, and he’ll definitely get back to Munich stronger with lots of playing time and also important experiences. If Zvonarek will get a chance to play for Bayern in the future remains to be seen, but it looks rather unrealistic at the moment.
Jonathan Asp Jensen (19, Grasshoppers Zurich)
One of the biggest prospects in Bayern Munich's youth teams has been Jonnathan Asp Jensen for years now. The Danish gem signed with the German side in 2022, when Bayern already had to pay more than a million euros for him. Since then, Asp Jensen has developed continuously and already played some impressive matches in their youth teams as well as the second team in the fourth German league.
Last summer, all parties decided to go for a loan. Asp Jesen should get the chance to go out and play on a higher level than Bayern’s second team. Therefore, the club was looking for a destination with high chances of earning playing time, and in the end, Asp Jensen joined Grasshoppers together with Lovro Zvonarek.
While Zvonarek is playing most of the matches and overall doing a decent or even good job, Asp Jensen became a starter too and developed into the best scorer of the team and one of the most exciting players to watch in the whole league so far. Some of his goals were absolutely phenomenal and were seen on Social Media a lot. After half of the season, the Danish Youth international has already contributed with six goals and four assists, which are great numbers for a talent playing in a first league for the very first time. His chances of getting a real chance in Munich are at least higher than the ones of Zvonarek at the moment.
The Swiss League (again) proves to be an ideal destination for young players to grow and make their next big steps in their development. This is also one of the reasons why other clubs are continuously looking into the Swiss League, both for potential new signings and loaning young players to this league.
In the end it’s of course not only about the clubs and transfer activities. Such deals are also securing exciting players for the league, even if it's only a one-year loan. Players like Asp Jesen are attracting interest from fans, who want to follow and watch them.
It’s about entertaining people by providing them with nice football and interesting players. For some of the fans, it’s exciting to bet on matches as well, which is why some comparison sites have nice overviews with the best bookmakers for football bets in Switzerland. Even if that’s nothing someone is interested in, as long as people keep up on following sports, sharing their passions, and having fun, everything is good with football in Switzerland.
