But not on Tram 14 headed to St Jakob-Park, the venue for the Switzerland women’s national team’s first Euro 2025 match against Norway. Here, the afternoon heat meets armpits in the face, bodies jousting for balance, the smell of contest and blank slates (and, yes, a 35C/96F heatwave wafting).
A man with no shirt stands on the tram wearing a Nordic Viking helmet. A fellow Viking wears a red Norway shirt. When the doors open to reveal more red shirts, but of the Swiss kind, he bellows: “No Switzerland, this is Norway!” Laughter. Smiles. Then, a squishing together, the momentary annexation of territory forgotten, until the red shirts of Switzerland and Norway fill the cars entirely.
So it is in St Jakob-Park. An hour before kick-off, Switzerland run onto the pitch to deafening applause. This alone feels triumphant. ‘Conservative’ was the word former Switzerland Football Association head of women’s football Tatjana Haenni used to describe the nation’s historic relationship with women’s football, a simple word dripping with baggage — from bans, hostility, acceptance and eventually apathy, so that everything, in the end, drifts.
As the Swiss national anthem roared from the terraces, dispelling any suggestion that the majority of red were not from these parts, any facsimile of drift was impossible to register.
Head coach Pia Sundhage named a starting XI with an average age of 24.6 (32-year-old Lia Walti the only player over 30), providing a glimpse into the future.
Switzerland played with a cavalier swagger, as if the onus of putting on a show wasn’t an obligation but a freedom. None more enjoyed that freedom than Eintracht Frankfurt left-back Nadine Riesen. After terrorising Norway’s left flank for just under half an hour, the 25-year-old, after some clever interplay with Walti, squeezed a shot by the outstretched arms of goalkeeper Cecilie Fiskerstrand. Before the ball could ping off the base of the near post and in, the home crowd was already skybound, ear-piercing in their celebrations.
Few in Switzerland expect to go far in this tournament. There is ambition and there is realism, and fans of Switzerland — who have never reached the knockout stages of this tournament, and who only qualified for their first major tournament 10 years ago — swam clearly in the middle of that Venn diagram in the lead-up to Wednesday night.
The thinking looked prescient as Norway clawed back one through Ballon D’Or winner Ada Hegerberg after poor defending from a corner and another as Switzerland defender Julia Stierli bundled in an own goal after a Norway counter. This felt inevitable. Yet a sense of injustice seared through the home crowd, growing greater after Hegerberg’s missed penalty, even more so after VAR denied the hosts their own (ruled off due to an offside call) and Norway’s time-wasting, the angry jeers only drowned out by the hopeful screams when Switzerland would come close once again.
“I’m lost for words,” Riesen told the media after the match. “It’s amazing. To come out and see that everyone is rooting, everyone is cheering and that we are loved that… Hopefully, all the other games it is the same.”
And so begs the question, what next? Switzerland’s opener registered an attendance of 34,063 in St Jakob-Park, the tournament’s largest stadium at just over 35,000 capacity. One high-ranking UEFA figure voiced concerns before kick-off that, due to the relatively cheap nature of tickets, some fans might decide not to turn out. The worry speaks to the recent theory of major tournaments that the formula for success begins with success on the pitch.
The past two Euros have been won by their hosts (Netherlands, England), capturing the imagination of their nations and spawning sea changes of their own. In the months after Euro 2017, football became the most popular women’s sport in the Netherlands and research suggested that seven in 10 Dutch citizens took an interest in the game. In the two years after England’s triumph, women and girls’ football participation grew by 56 per cent, with 77 per cent of schools offering girls equal opportunity to play football.
Switzerland entered the Euros with a different expectation, one that looks to foster a tournament atmosphere that captures the imagination to catalyse on-pitch success.
“I never understood that (idea you have to succeed as the host nation),” Haenni told earlier this month. “It’s simple-minded. People say you have to do well for the atmosphere and emotions in the country. But if you build your ticketing strategy and your tournament’s overall concept on that, I think it’s a mistake. In women’s football, it’s so much more. You really change a country if you host it properly.”
In this way, Euro 2025 is both an inflection point and a case study for the host nation and the rest of Europe.
There is no guarantee of post-tournament progress. UEFA have been frank that the tournament will operate at a significant loss of a projected net €20m-25million. But other nations more in the ilk of Switzerland are craning their neck, considering UEFA’s increased prize pot of €41m (£35.2m), the doubling of club benefits, the record 600,000 tickets already sold, and the projected revenue of €128million for Switzerland.
Yet, the biggest test will be whether a nation with a self-described small footballing history disabuses those outside and, more importantly, those within it of that reputation, thus catalysing something bigger and better.
It’s like a hot tram teeming with humans pushing against the drift or an unexpected goal against the group favourites that unleashes a movement.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Switzerland, Women’s Soccer, Women’s Euros
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