Grasshoppers Zurich Fall to a Strong FC Sion

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Grasshoppers FC were dominated and defeated at home by a strong FC Sion. Sion were are not back into the positives with their point value after receiving a 22 point deduction from the SFA for fielding non-rostered players in a European fixture earlier this season. Sion sit at the second to last spot in the table ahead of Xamax, who face automatic relegation after corruption and bankruptcy rattled their campaign in December. Grasshoppers don't need to fear relegation spots since they are both taken, but will surely wish for higher league positioning than the seventh place spot they already hold out of ten Axpo Super League positions.


Sion were the first to threaten the goal after kickoff at the Letzigrund. The home side let the Sion offense through and by the 21st minute young goalkeeper Roman Burki had made three fantastic saves. He managed to hold strong in the Grasshoppers goal and the efforts were stopped. Sion dominated the entire match, but Grasshoppers young front runners Frank Feltscher and Steven Zuber connected on multiple occasions before the close of the first half to make life difficult for the Sion back line. The two sides held each other to a 0-0 draw until the last minute of regular time when Vanczak put a powerful header off of a corner kick past Burki and his defense. Grasshoppers had been on the attack for the last few minutes of the first half, but they conceded from the set piece and Sion had the 1-0 lead at the break.

Coming out of halftime, Grasshoppers were off to a good start but Sion began to dominate again and even the strike force for Grasshoppers was forced to come back and help on the defense. Their efforts would be in vain. Four minutes after the restart, Sion found the back of the net with a fantastic strike from Arnaud Buhler. A powerful left footed shot found the bottom corner of the goal and Sion had a 2-0 lead. Both sides threatened the goals for the remainder of the half, but Sion were the dominant side. Burki remained busy while Sion keeper Vanins had very little to do for the remainder of the match. The score at the final whistle was FC Sion 2, Grasshoppers FC 0.