Football in Liechtenstein

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Football game in the Rheinpark Stadium Vaduz (2002)

In addition to winter sports , football is one of the most popular sports in Liechtenstein . In the Principality of Liechtenstein , which is 160 km² in size and has 36,000 inhabitants, there are seven clubs with around 1,700 active footballers. This makes the Liechtenstein Football Association (LFV) one of the smallest in the world, but one of the largest in relation to the size of the population.

The Liechtenstein clubs do not hold their own championship. The Liechtenstein Football Association , which was founded in 1934, is affiliated with the Swiss Football Association with its clubs , where it participates in the league game operation, but conducts its own cup competition.

The beginnings of football

The Football Sport came relatively late in Liechtenstein. While football was already being played in neighboring Switzerland and Austria at the end of the 19th century, the sport in Liechtenstein was initially reluctant to take up. The sport enjoyed no respect and was ridiculed - life in Liechtenstein, which was still mainly rural at the time, was tough and the population was too poor for such hobbies to break through. Popular educational and ideological goals did not yet exist. State aid was excluded, the construction of sports facilities was utopian. Despite the initially existing braking function of society, church and schools, football slowly but surely caught on in Liechtenstein from around 1930.

Even before the first Liechtenstein football clubs were founded , a number of idealists got together to chat in different places without having any idea of ​​the rules of football. The few sources still available today indicate that the first efforts to found official football clubs were made in 1931. After an interest group successfully tried to get a soccer field allocated in the Vaduz municipality, FC Vaduz was founded in December 1931 as the first Liechtenstein soccer club. The following year FC Balzers and FC Triesen were launched. While FC Balzers and FC Triesen immediately joined the Swiss Football Association, FC Vaduz played their first championship round in 1932 with the Austrian Vorarlberg Football Association. Just one year later, however, FC Vaduz also joined the Swiss association, and all Liechtenstein clubs have been integrated into its league system since then.

Football Association

Logo of the LFV

In 1934, the three previously founded clubs, FC Balzers , FC Triesen and FC Vaduz, merged to form the Liechtenstein Football Association, which has also held its own competition - the Liechtenstein Football Cup - since 1946. In 1949 FC Schaan and in 1954 USV Eschen-Mauren - which was run as FC Mauren until 1963 - were added as additional members. In 1958, the FC Ruggell was included and last in 1972 the FC Triesenberg .

The Liechtenstein Football Association is a member of the Liechtenstein Olympic Sports Association (LOSV) and a partner association of the Eastern Switzerland Football Association (OFV). In 1974 the association became the 142nd member of the world association FIFA , and the 34th member of the European football association UEFA ; eight years later, the Liechtenstein national football team's first international match was played. In the meantime, Liechtenstein football has already had its first small successes.

National football team

The Liechtenstein national football team only played their first official international match eight years after joining FIFA and UEFA. It took place on March 9, 1982 in front of 4500 spectators in Balzers against Switzerland and ended with a 0-1 defeat. In the following years only sporadic international matches were played. This was followed in 1984 by a 6-0 draw against Austria for the 50th anniversary of the LFV, which, according to the former association vice-president Otto Biedermann, should not have been an official international match. Further games were played against the USA in 1990 (1: 4) and in 1991 against the Swiss neighbors (0: 6). For the first time, they faced the international competition under the German coach Dietrich Weise as part of the qualifying round for the 1996 European Championship. According to the then LFV President Ernst Nigg, the previous qualification for the 1994 World Cup would have been too big an administrative challenge that could not be mastered at the time, which is why a notification for the World Cup qualification had been withdrawn.

The home games are currently being played in the Rheinpark Stadium in Vaduz .

Liechtenstein achieved their first victory on June 6 of the same year in Vaduz in a friendly with a 2-0 win against a club team from Beijing . Since 1994, Liechtenstein has regularly participated in the qualification for the European Championship and the World Championship . In their first appearances in the qualifying rounds, the Liechtensteiners sometimes suffered very heavy defeats, for example against Romania (0: 8 and 1: 7) or Macedonia (1:11).

In 1998 they could look forward to their first victory in a competitive game - a 2-1 win against Azerbaijan . In qualifying for the 2002 World Cup , Liechtenstein finished last in its group without a win or goalless, but the defeats were not as high as in the past. In the preliminary rounds for the European Championship in Portugal in 2004 they managed a 1-1 draw against Macedonia, but again only the last place in the table remained.

In qualifying for the 2006 World Cup , Liechtenstein's selection team caused some surprises. The team won against Luxembourg with a clear 4-0 away and achieved a 3-0 win at home. Liechtenstein was able to secure a point against Slovakia , second in the table . The biggest surprise, however, were the games against eventual group winners Portugal . At home they made up a 0-2 deficit and ended up with a sensational 2-2 draw. In the second leg in Aveiro the Liechtensteiners even took a 1-0 lead with a goal from Benjamin Fischer, but Pauleta and Nuno Gomes were able to prevent a defeat in the end and secure the 2-1 victory for the vice-European champions. Portugal conceded three of the five goals against Liechtenstein in this qualification. In qualifying group 3 for the 2006 World Cup , Liechtenstein finished penultimate but still achieved 8 points with a goal difference of 13:23.

Liechtenstein wanted to build on these successes and, especially for qualifying for the European Football Championship in 2008 in the neighboring countries of Austria and Switzerland, took on a lot. In fact, not a single appearance in Liechtenstein turned out to be a peat festival, and on March 28th they even won their first home game, a 1-0 win over the participants of EURO 2004 Latvia . On October 17, 2007, the national team even managed a 3-0 victory over the team from Iceland , but Liechtenstein finished last in their group.

League football

Due to the small number of clubs, the Liechtenstein Football Association does not hold its own championship round. According to a contractual agreement, the Liechtenstein soccer clubs have therefore been taking part in the Swiss championship since 1933. However, Liechtenstein clubs can neither become Swiss champions nor qualify for a European competition via the league.

The Swiss league system consists of the two professional leagues Super League (formerly National League A ) with ten teams and the Challenge League (formerly National League B ) with ten teams. This is followed by the amateur leagues from the Promotion League to the 1st league and the 2nd interregional league . Games from the 2nd league down to the 5th league are organized by the Eastern Switzerland Football Association (OFV).

The principality's most successful club to date - FC Vaduz - played in the Super League for the first time in 2008/09 , making it the first Liechtenstein club in the Swiss first division and the only Liechtenstein professional club. After FC Vaduz had to relegate after just one season, they played again in the Super League from 2014 to 2017, and FC Vaduz has been in the Challenge League ever since.

The FC Balzers and USV Eschen-Mauren take the game operation of the first league in part. Two leagues lower is currently played by FC Ruggell , which belongs to the 2nd division (sixth national division). The FC Schaan and FC Triesen are the 3. Liga assigned; the lowest class club from Liechtenstein in 2015/16 is FC Triesenberg from the 4th league .

Cup competition

The Liechtenstein Cup has been held annually since 1946. The cup winner determined in the knockout system is entitled to participate in the qualification for the UEFA Europa League .

In the first six seasons, the FC Triesen team won the cup five times. After that, until the early 1970s, the Liechtenstein Cup was clearly dominated by FC Vaduz , which won the cup 16 times from 1952 to 1971. FC Vaduz's streak during this period was only interrupted by the surprising victory of FC Schaan in 1955 and a change in the regulations from 1963 to 1965, due to which FC Vaduz was no longer eligible to participate.

It wasn't until the 1970s and early 1980s that the picture on the winners list changed. With FC Triesen , FC Balzers and USV Eschen-Mauren , other clubs were also able to win the competition. Since 1985, however, FC Vaduz has dominated the Liechtenstein Cup again and has won the cup a total of 16 times and never lost again from 1998 to the 2012 final.

The most successful teams in the Liechtenstein Cup:

  • FC Vaduz (45 cup wins)
  • FC Balzers (11 cup wins)
  • FC Triesen (8 cup wins)
  • USV Eschen-Mauren (5 cup wins)
  • FC Schaan (3 cup wins)

The FC Ruggell reached the cup final six times, most recently in 2007, but could not win any of them. FC Triesenberg reached the cup final for the first time in 2015.

European Cup

According to the UEFA distribution formula, the placement in the UEFA five-year ranking would actually guarantee the Liechtenstein Football Association a place in the Champions League qualification and three further Europa League places. However, since the Liechtenstein clubs play in Swiss leagues and do not have their own championship, only the Liechtenstein Cup winner qualifies for the Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup) and must first qualify here. This means that Liechtenstein clubs only have the theoretical opportunity to qualify for the UEFA Champions League by securing a starting place by winning the Europa League.

UEFA five-year ranking

Placement in the UEFA five-year ranking ( previous year's ranking in brackets ). The abbreviations CL and EL after the country coefficients indicate the number of representatives in the 2019/20 season of the Champions League and the Europa League .

  • 30. +2( 32 ) Slovakia ( league , cup ) - coefficient: 15,625 - CL: 1, EL: 3SlovakiaSlovakia 
  • 31. −1( 30 ) Slovenia ( league , cup ) - coefficient: 15,000 - CL: 1, EL: 3SloveniaSlovenia 
  • 32. −1( 31 ) Liechtenstein ( Cup ) - coefficient: 13,500 - CL: 0, EL: 1LiechtensteinLiechtenstein 
  • 33. +3( 36 ) Hungary ( league , cup ) - coefficient: 10,500 - CL: 1, EL: 3HungaryHungary 
  • 34. +3( 37 ) Moldova ( league , cup ) - coefficient: 8,000 - CL: 1, EL: 3Moldova RepublicRepublic of Moldova 

Status: end of the European Cup season 2018/19

Youth football

The national championship of the Liechtenstein A, B and C juniors is held in the form of a championship round, the championship of the juniors D, E and F in the form of tournaments that are usually held in May and June.

The Liechtenstein team U16 , U17 and U18 also take part in the top football championship organized by the Swiss Football Association . This is the top division of Liechtenstein and Swiss junior football. In addition to the Liechtenstein team , many well-known Swiss clubs such as FC Basel , FC Luzern , FC Sion and Grasshoppers Zurich are represented in this league .

Women's and girls' football

For a long time, women's football was not widespread in Liechtenstein. Only FC Ruggell (since 1987), FC Vaduz (since 1990) and FC Triesen (since 1996) previously owned a women's team. In addition, there were teams in the junior women's division at the clubs FC Schaan and USV Eschen-Mauren . The “Girls on the Ball” project was launched in 2008 for further funding.

For the 2017/18 season there are now women's football teams at all seven clubs that play in the following league systems and age groups:

A Liechtenstein women's national team does not yet exist, there is only one U19 and U17 national team. These have been trained by the former Swiss national player Daniela Künzler since November 2016 . A first international match against Gibraltar, scheduled for June 28, 2020, had to be canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ “The football way of Liechtenstein” by Hartmut Scherzer in Sport-Bild from December 29, 1992, pp. 18-20
  2. ↑ Top marks instead of castles in the air , nzz.ch
  3. ↑ UEFA rankings for club competitions. In: UEFA. Retrieved July 14, 2019 .