Switzerland History

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Description

The Swiss national football team (also known as the Schweizer Nati in German, La Nati in French and Squadra nazionale in Italian) is the national football team of Switzerland and is controlled by the Swiss Football Association.

Its best performances in the World Cup have been reaching the quarter-finals three times, in 1934, 1938 and when the country hosted the event in 1954. Switzerland also won silver at the 1924 Olympics. The 2002 U-17 European Championship was won by the Nati.

In 2006, Switzerland set a FIFA World Cup record by being eliminated from the competition despite not conceding a goal, losing to Ukraine in a penalty shootout in the last 16, by failing to score a single penalty - becoming the first national team in Cup history to do this.

Switzerland co-hosted Euro 2008 with Austria, making their third appearance in the competition. As with the two previous appearances, they did not clear the group stages.

In October 2009, Switzerland booked their place at the 2010 World Cup finals with a goalless draw against Israel at St Jacob stadium in Basel.



 

Recent History

Euro 2004

Qualification: Switzerland qualified for the Euro 2004 in Portugal by finishing first in group 10 of the qualifying, ahead of Russia and Ireland.

Group stage: After a 0–0 draw against Croatia, they lost 0–3 against England and 1–3 against France, and thus ended on the last place in group B of the main tournament.

Trivia: Johann Vonlanthen became the youngest scorer ever in the Euro championships when he equalised against France, beating the record (set only four days earlier by Wayne Rooney) by three months.

World Cup 2006
The Swiss line-up against China, just before World Cup 2006

Qualification: The World Cup 2006 in Germany was the first World Cup for Switzerland since their participation at the World Cup 1994. After finishing second behind France in qualifying group 4, they defeated Turkey in the play-off round 2–0 and 4–2 to qualify for the main tournament.

Group stage: In the group stage, they played again against France. The game played in Stuttgart ended in a goalless draw. After defeating Togo 2–0 in Dortmund and South Korea also 2–0 in Hannover, they finished first in group G and qualified for the knockout stage.

Round of 16: In the second round of the tournament, they faced Ukraine in Cologne. The game had to be decided in a penalty shootout since no goal was scored after 120 minutes. Ukraine won the shootout 3–0.

Trivia: Switzerland was the only team in tournament not to have conceded a goal during regulation time in their matches. Switzerland's top scorer at the tournament was Alexander Frei with 2 goals.

Euro 2008

Qualification: Switzerland co-hosted the Euro 2008 together with Austria and was therefore automatically qualified.

Group stage: Switzerland played all matches of group A in Basel. After losing the opening game 0–1 to the Czech Republic and the second game 1–2 against Turkey, they were already eliminated from their home tournament after only two games. Consolation came from the 2–0 victory over Portugal in the final group stage game.

Trivia: All 3 goals by Switzerland were scored by Hakan Yakin.


Squad
NamePositionGrade FansGroups
Gökhan İnler
Midfield
22
0
Philippe Senderos
Defense
76
 0
Eren Derdiyok
Offense
19
 0
Steve von Bergen
Defense
1
 0
Valon Behrami
Midfield
39
 0
Stephan Lichtsteiner
Defense
5
 0
Reto Ziegler
Defense
2
0
Gelson Fernandes
Midfield
6
 0
Diego Benaglio
Goal
9
 0
Marco Wölfli
Goal
1
 0
Last edited by:
On: December 08, 2009
Version: 5