Lukas Görtler scored the opener around the half-hour mark, his 52nd competitive goal for the club and 101st scoring point, and Hugo Vandermersch added the second in the 83rd minute.
Akpe Victory (6th minute) and Zan Celar gave Basel a 2:0 lead, Aaron Malouda made it 3:0 in the 87th minute, and Jonas Omlin kept a clean sheet.
Kingstone Mutandwa scored twice and assisted once, extending his scoring run to five consecutive matches, while Thomas Lopes and Pedro Naressi also found the net.
St. Gallen beat Rapperswil-Jona 2:0 on Friday, 16 October, in a cantonal derby in which the Challenge League side held its own for long stretches. The result puts the defending Swiss Cup holders into the round of 16 in regulation time, unlike the same pairing in December 2025, when St. Gallen needed a penalty shootout to go through. That tie was the first step on the route to the club's first cup title in 57 years, with goalkeeper Lukas Watkowiak cast as the hero of the shootout. This time the Super League club needed neither extra time nor spot kicks. Basel, Servette and Lausanne-Ouchy also advanced on the same day, and none of the four conceded.
Captain Lukas Görtler, 32, gave St. Gallen the lead around the half-hour mark, finishing a corner from Lukas Daschner first time. The goal was his 52nd competitive strike for the club and his 101st scoring point when goals and assists are counted together. It moved him past the previous club best held by Alex Tachie-Mensah, making him the sole all-time record scorer for St. Gallen. The corner itself followed a misplaced pass by Rapperswil-Jona's most experienced player, Raul Bobadilla, 39. Hugo Vandermersch, 27, sealed the result with the second goal in the 83rd minute, and the visitors, who lacked a cutting edge up front, could not respond.
Basel won 3:0 at Stade Nyonnais, the bottom side of the Challenge League, in only the second match under coach Slavisa Jokanovic, following a 3:0 defeat at Vaduz. Akpe Victory headed Basel in front in the sixth minute after the Nyon goalkeeper Marwan Aubert had come out of his goal, and Zan Celar made it 2:0 about ten minutes later from a pass by Kazeem Olaigbe. After the interval Basel lost concentration and gave the ball away repeatedly, while Nyon pressed and came close to scoring several times. Mardochée Miguel, 19, hit the post for the hosts, but Basel goalkeeper Jonas Omlin was not beaten, his first clean sheet since returning to the club. Aaron Malouda made it 3:0 in the 87th minute after a poor pass back by the Nyon goalkeeper, his first goal in a Basel shirt.
Servette beat Rotkreuz 4:0 on the same day, against the second-tier interregional side from the Zug area. Thomas Lopes (14th minute) and Kingstone Mutandwa (40th minute) scored before the interval, and after it Mutandwa struck again (74th minute) and Pedro Naressi added a goal. Mutandwa, a summer signing from Zambia, scored twice and provided an assist, and he has now found the net in five consecutive matches. Rotkreuz had reached the quarter-final in 2023 but their run ended in round two in 2026. Lausanne-Ouchy, last season's cup finalist, beat Etoile Carouge 3:0 at home in a Challenge League derby between two clubs from western Switzerland, and they remain unbeaten this season.
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St. Gallen beat Rapperswil-Jona 2:0 on Friday, 16 October, Basel won 3:0 at Stade Nyonnais, Servette won 4:0 at Rotkreuz and Lausanne-Ouchy beat Etoile Carouge 3:0, all four without conceding a goal.
AI text based on reports by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, watson.ch/, Blick.ch and other publishers. Published .