# 1938–39 FC Basel season

The FC Basel 1938–39 season was the forty-sixth season since the club's foundation on 15 November 1893. FC Basel played their home games in the Landhof in the district Wettstein in Kleinbasel. Emil Junker was the club chairman and it was his third consecutive season as club president. The club had financial and sporting problems over the previous few years and these continued this season.

## Overview

According to statements in the 75th anniversary book written years later by author Jules Düblin (ex-player and ex-club chairman) the club had problems with the Swiss Football Association (SFA). The club was also having financial problems and these problems continued this season. The club suffered under the results of this confrontation with the SFA. These were mainly due to the transfer of the player Numa Monnard, who at the start of the season returned to his former club Cantonal Neuchatel.
Fernand Jaccard who had been Basel's player-manager the previous season, continued for the club in the same position this season. Basel played a total of 29 matches in their 1938–39 season. 22 of these matches were in the Nationalliga, two in the Swiss Cup and five were friendly matches. Of these five friendlies two were played at home in the Landhof and the other three were also in Switzerland. Two friendly games were won, two drawn and one ended in a defeat.
12 teams contested the 1938–39 Nationalliga championship, which was played as a round-robin, one team to be relegated. Despite the fact that the players were well prepared for the season, as Düblin wrote in his summary, sportingly the season was very bad. Despite two victories over the two top clubs that season, Grasshopper Club and Grenchen, one catastrophic game followed the other. Of the 22 domestic league games only five ended with a win, 12 were defeats. The team ended in last position, two points behind Biel-Bienne and the Young Boys. Basel was relegated for the first time in the club history into the newly reorganized 1.Liga.
In the first principal round of the Swiss Cup Basel were drawn at home against lower tier local rivals Concordia Basel and won 3–2. In the second round Basel were also drawn at home against a lower-tier team, but Brühl St. Gallen proved to be a strong competitor and Basel were defeated 1–3. and were thrown out of the competition.

## Players

The following is the list of the Basel first team squad during the season 1938–39. The list includes players that were in the squad the day the season started on 24 July 1938 but subsequently left the club after that date.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
| No. | Pos. | Nation | Player |
| — | GK | SUI | Eugène de Kalbermatten |
| — | GK | SUI | Fritz Glaser |
| — | GK | SUI | Kurt Imhof |
| — | DF | SUI | Henri Bernard |
| — | DF | SUI | Robert Büchi |
| — | DF | SUI | Louis Favre |
| — | DF | SUI | Ernst Grauer |
| — | MF | SUI | Ernst Hufschmid |
| — | DF | SUI | Heinrich Diethelm |
| — | DF | SUI | Heinz Elsässer |
| — | MF | SUI | August Ibach |
| — | MF | SUI | Fernand Jaccard |
| No. | Pos. | Nation | Player |
| — | MF | SUI | Albert Mohler |
| — | MF | FRG | Franz Sattler |
| — | MF | SUI | Fritz Schmidlin (I) |
| — | MF | SUI | Guglielmo Spadini |
| — | MF | SUI | Eduard Zuber |
| — | FW | SUI | ? Bossoni |
| — | FW | SUI | Eduard Buser |
| — | FW | SUI | Maurice Dubosson |
| — | FW | SUI | Eduard Irniger |
| — | FW | SUI | Alex Mathys |
| — | FW | SUI | Othmar Saner |
| — | FW | SUI | René Schaller |
| — | FW | SUI | Walter Zürrer |

### Players who left the squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
| No. | Pos. | Nation | Player |
| — | DF | GER | Emil Hummel |
| — | MF | SUI | Caspar Monigatti |
| No. | Pos. | Nation | Player |
| — | FW | SUI | Numa Monnard |
| — | FW | SUI | Alfons Weber (II) |

## Results
### Legend

Win  Draw  Loss  Postponed

### Nationalliga
#### League matches
#### League table

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Grasshopper Club | 22 | 12 | 7 | 3 | 34 | 20 | +14 | 31 | Swiss Champions |
| 2 | Grenchen | 22 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 38 | 30 | +8 | 27 | |
| 3 | Lugano | 22 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 29 | 23 | +6 | 27 | |
| 4 | Servette | 22 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 43 | 28 | +15 | 26 | |
| 5 | Nordstern Basel | 22 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 29 | 24 | +5 | 23 | |
| 6 | Lausanne-Sport | 22 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 34 | 28 | +6 | 22 | Swiss Cup winners |
| 7 | La Chaux-de-Fonds | 22 | 9 | 4 | 9 | 29 | 41 | −12 | 22 | |
| 8 | Luzern | 22 | 7 | 5 | 10 | 42 | 45 | −3 | 19 | |
| 9 | Young Fellows Zürich | 22 | 6 | 6 | 10 | 29 | 31 | −2 | 18 | |
| 10 | Young Boys | 22 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 22 | 35 | −13 | 17 | |
| 11 | Biel-Bienne | 22 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 22 | 39 | −17 | 17 | |
| 12 | Basel | 22 | 5 | 5 | 12 | 29 | 36 | −7 | 15 | Relegated |