The Swiss women are doing much better under national team coach Pia Sundhage than under her predecessor Inka Grings
Image: Keystone
Ramona Bachmann (center) and former Swiss national team coach Inka Grings (right)
Image: Keystone
Pia Sundhage speaks to Meriame Terchoun (left) and Viola Calligaris at the training camp in Spain in February
Image: Keystone
Young attacking hope Naomi Luyet celebrates after her goal to make it 2:1 against France
Image: Keystone
The Swiss players - here Sydney Schertenleib, Alisha Lehmann, Noelle Maritz and Smilla Vallotto (from left to right) - talk to national team sports coordinator Johan Djourou during a training session in a visibly good mood
Image: Keystone
The Swiss women are doing much better under national team coach Pia Sundhage than under her predecessor Inka Grings
Image: Keystone
Ramona Bachmann (center) and former Swiss national team coach Inka Grings (right)
Image: Keystone
Pia Sundhage speaks to Meriame Terchoun (left) and Viola Calligaris at the training camp in Spain in February
Image: Keystone
Young attacking hope Naomi Luyet celebrates after her goal to make it 2:1 against France
Image: Keystone
The Swiss players - here Sydney Schertenleib, Alisha Lehmann, Noelle Maritz and Smilla Vallotto (from left to right) - talk to national team sports coordinator Johan Djourou during a training session in a visibly good mood
Image: Keystone
The Swiss women's national team loses twice at the end of the year. But instead of unrest, the SFA environment is dominated by confidence and anticipation of the European Championship. Which has a lot to do with coach Pia Sundhage.
These are scenes that make you sit up and take notice. The Swiss women's national team plays Spain at the end of October 2023. It was the 37th minute when coach Inka Grings used an interruption to call the players to her for tactical instructions with the score at 0:2. On the edge of the Letzigrund stadium pitch, the German spoke energetically to the assembled team, gesticulating. Captain Lia Wälti and defender Viola Calligaris turn away at some point and roll their eyes, Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic discusses with her superior, but then turns her gaze away to her teammates, looking for help.
Switzerland lose 1:7 against the world champions. What is much more worrying on this evening, however, is that there seems to be a lot going wrong within the team. The chemistry between the players and coach Grings, who only took over at the beginning of the year and has only won one of 14 games, is not right at all. At the World Cup in New Zealand, the players repeatedly showed a lack of understanding for decisions made by the coach, whose tenure will end prematurely on November 17, 2023, on the way to a nail-biting qualification for the round of 16 and a 5-1 defeat against Spain.
The unsettling calm is gone
Anyone who is around this national team today will find it hard to believe that only 13 months have passed since then. Where there was resentment and power struggles, there is now joy and confidence. During the last meeting of the year, Meriame Terchoun sits in the team hotel and is asked what has changed in the team that it suddenly won against a top nation like France (2:1) as it did at the end of October. The 29-year-old, who plays for Dijon in France, talks about coach Pia Sundhage, who joined the SFA in January. "Pia brought in the idea that all players are extremely important, regardless of whether they're on the pitch or not."
Terchoun recounts how worried the Swede was when she noticed how quiet it was on the pitch during her first training sessions. She taught the players that they should communicate with each other a lot and get involved. "She has great social skills and it's impressive how she uses her knowledge to adapt the game to our strengths and weaknesses."
The young hopefuls are on the move
Sundhage has now been in charge for twelve games. After the two defeats at the end of the season against Germany (0:6) and European champions England (0:1), their record stands at seven wins, one draw and four defeats. The fact that the majority of the successes in the European Championship qualifiers, which were of no sporting significance, came against second-tier opponents and that the Swiss were then shown their limits against the top teams from Germany and England could be read as a big token in Sundhage's copybook.
However, these last two tests must be put into context. With captain Lia Wälti, defensive boss Luana Bühler, Géraldine Reuteler, young attacking hope Naomi Luyet and Ramona Bachmann, five players who had established themselves as team pillars were missing in the last 2024 squad. Even if Sundhage lives by the credo that all 23 players in the squad have an important role to play, a drop in performance cannot be prevented with such an accumulation of absentees.
The 64-year-old has tactically raised the Swiss women's game to a new level. She sees every game as an opportunity to grow. Every minute in the national team kit can be more valuable for a player's development in the long term than the team's short-term success in an insignificant test match. Against England, for example, Noemi Ivelj (18) and Riola Xhemaili (21) were used. Iman Beney (18) and Sydney Schertenleib (17), two of the team's young hopefuls, were in the starting line-up in both games of this match. "Every player can give something to another," says Elvira Herzog. "It doesn't matter whether she already has over 100 international caps or none at all."
The statement from the goalkeeper, who was named number 1 in November, is further evidence of the self-image and positive mood that has taken hold in the SFA selection over the course of this year. "It's a great feeling in this team, a very good team spirit." A togetherness that can also be read in Terchoun's sentence when she says that the players now also talk to each other outside of group matches and are very happy to see each other again. "That has improved enormously," she says.
Against France again - and then?
The strong team structure, the tactical expertise and the vision of the coach are the reasons why the Swiss women are optimistic about 2025. In July, the home European Championships will be the tournament that will be a career highlight for all the players and will drive forward the development of women's football in Switzerland in the long term.
Before the opening match on July 2 in Basel, six Nations League matches are scheduled between February and June. With Iceland, Norway and France, the Swiss women will once again be up against top teams. No problem, says Nadine Riesen. Because: "We want to measure ourselves against the best," says the Frankfurt legionnaire, already thinking about the draw for the European Championship.
The four groups of four will be drawn in Lausanne on December 16. As hosts, Switzerland can avoid a clash with Spain, Germany and France in the group stage. However, with England, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden, Switzerland could still face some tough opponents early on in the tournament.
A year ago, this would probably have caused concern in the SFA environment. But this national team believes in its own abilities again and has learned a lot in the last twelve months. The most important thing: that it can achieve a lot as a team.
SDA
