High-scoring day brings no change to football league table

Arjan Peco (left) secured Yverdon's victory over Lausanne Keystone

With the Olympic action over, attention is reverting to domestic sport. Sunday's games in the top football division saw a shower of goals but no change at the top of the league table.

Second-placed Lausanne were in with a good chance of wresting the top spot from Lugano when they faced lowly Yverdon. But after eliminating Torpedo Moscow from the Uefa Cup competition in Russia on Wednesday, Lausanne went down 2-0.

In the 24th minute Lausanne’s Jean-Philippe Karlen unexpectedly put Yverdon in the lead with an own goal, which Daniel Puce narrowly failed making up for a few minutes later when his free kick hit the post.

Just before the end of the first half Yverdon were awarded a penalty and a golden opportunity to consolidate their lead, but Cavalho’s shot found the crossbar instead.

In the second half, Yverdon nearly let victory slip through their fingers in the dying moments when Olivier Baudry found room to fire a shot that bounced off the crossbar. It took Yverdon until extra time to secure the game with a 91st minute goal by Arjan Peco.

The result means Lugano stay top of the table on 27 points after its 1-1 draw against Aarau on Friday, while Lausanne remain second on 24 points.

However, third and fourth placed Grasshoppers Zurich and St Gallen were able to close the gap on the Vaud side with convincing wins in their games on Sunday.

Grasshoppers secured the most impressive win of the day. They beat Sion 5:0. In front of a home crowd of 6,700 spectators in Zurich, Hakan Yakin took only 75 seconds to put them in the lead. Ricardo Cabanas, Roland Schwegler, Stéphane Chapuisat and Elvir Melunovic all had their turn to boot the ball into the net.

St Gallen also notched up five goals to beat their rivals, Lucerne. With a little more than 10 minutes until the end of the game, Zenun Selimi scored Lucerne’s only goal of the match.

The two wins mean St Gallen and Grasshoppers remain tied at 23 points in the league table, with the Zurich side ahead on goal difference.

Basel continued the impressively high scoring which characterised the day. They beat Neuchatel Xamax 5:1. In the overall table, Basel now stands sixth on 19 points, while Neuchatel Xamax remains last on only eight points.

Servette Geneva narrowly defended its fifth place above Basel with a 1-1 draw against FC Zurich.

swissinfo with agencies