First, Grasshopper Zürich raced into a 2-0 lead, only for Young Boys to peg them back at 2-2. Zürich once again regained the lead and even watched the opponents, for a change, be reduced to 10, and eventually even 9, men. Yet the Swiss League cellar dwellers would still concede the equalizer late on, somehow getting just a point. For a team that had not only lost all of the last three games in a row but had received a red card of their own in all of those matches, not getting a victory here was a big blow.
There was a source of optimism, however, with Bayern Munich loanee Jonathan Asp Jensen putting on a good display, notching two assists along with a goal. If ones wishes to watch the highlights of the match, they are here. Asp Jensen was not the main man for all the goals (witness the finish from midfielder Óscar Clement for the second goal) but witness the filthy first touch to take the ball away from the defender in the build up to the first goal, the composure to find the right pass for the second and of course the incredible class he shows to score the third goal to see just how classy Asp Jensen was in this match.
Gerald Scheiblehner, Grasshopper Zürich’s head coach, talked about the Danish playmaker’s outstanding performance after the match, as captured by @iMiaSanMia_GER: “Cool for us. Cool for him. He showed us the kind of individual quality he has. He has the quality to decide a game.”
Asp Jensen himself, however, had little to say about his performance: “We are frustrated. In the end we are left with only a point. Currently, I am just living in the moment,” he said, as captured by @iMiaSanMia_GER. “But I’m thinking just about the fact that we should have won this game- the 3:3 [final score] is annoying.”
Not only were Zürich close to winning the match, they could have used the extra 2 points. Stuck on 10 points after 11 matches, the club are stuck second to bottom in the league after narrowly escaping relegation via the playoffs last season. Asp Jensen may not want to think about his performances, at the moment, but they are certainly helping Zürich in their quest to avoid relegation. Having contributed 5 goals and 4 assists in his 10 league games, Asp Jensen has, at the time of writing, had a direct hand in 53% of the team’s 17 league goals. Not too shabby for his first professional season outside of Bayern’s youth academy, right?
