Switzerland's fans are on the march. Can they ensure the game really is ‘here to stay'?

New York Times

14 hours ago

It is barely 7pm in Bern and a vexed motorcyclist revs his engine. It is angry and, honestly, in vain. Because there is no crossing this thick red-shirted river, and there is certainly no stopping it. There are almost two hours to go until kick-off and the mile perimeter around the Wankdorf Stadium is cordoned off, a momentary Switzerland dominion for the Euro 2025 host's quarter-final against Spain. A crimson placard screams from the fan march: 'Here To Stay.'
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At the risk of spoiling the ending, the hosts do not stay in Euro 2025. Spain beat Switzerland 2-0, Aitana Bonmati eventually prising open Switzerland's dogged defence in the 66th minute to feed Athenea del Castillo.
That this game demanded two moments of pure brilliance surprised some. Spain are world champions, Switzerland qualified for their first major tournament a decade ago. They had never escaped the group stages — until now.
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The 15,000-strong Swiss fan march moves north towards the stadium purposefully, but slowly. Much in the same way the locals here drift down the River Are, content to be swept up, knowing sometimes it is better not just to be in the present but to lose yourself in it, before having to eventually clamber to shore.
So beers are toasted. Chants sung. A brass band quartet erupts into song while sat atop some aesthetic-looking Swiss rocks. Even the queues for the portaloos — growing around corners like straw-paper snakes — endure their wait with inexplicable fulfilment.
Before kick-off, the Wankdorf is ear-splitting, each home player's name met with a quasi-war cry. When Spain's Mariona Caldentey drags her penalty wide in the eighth minute, a beer is released into the sky, and from there, all inhibitions are gone. As the half-time whistle blows with the score at 0-0, Spain head coach Montse Tome's brow is furrowed. The noise inside the stadium is deafening. At times, it is beautiful. At others, it is beautifully furious: at Laia Alexandri's inexplicable escape of a second yellow card in the first half, at the penalty awarded to Alexia Putellas (also missed). Finally, at their journey suddenly ended.
For Jennifer Dinges, the reality is dizzying.
One of the three co-founders of the Switzerland Women's fan group alongside Celine Plee and Amy Owen (their friendship formed over their mutual appreciation of former Arsenal and Switzerland international Malin Gut), Dinges recalls a Swiss Women's fan march last year involving a couple of hundred people, if that. 'No structure, no order,' she says. Over the past three years, the international matches she attended vacillated in supporters between 1,000 to 7,000.
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Before the European Championship, the trio knew change was paramount. They lobbied former Swiss FA head of women's and girls' football Tatjana Haenni for advice.
'She told us just to do it (the fan march),' Dinges says. 'It if picks up, which it would, people would follow.'
They have. Nearly 5,000 turned out to watch Switzerland's open training sessions in the days leading to Friday's quarter-final. The 32,000-capacity Wankdorf was sold out.
While Switzerland is a country that knows how to relish the present, considering the future has never been more critical.
Records have been shattered here. The previous record aggregate group stage attendance (369,314) set at Euro 2022 was beaten by the end of matchday two, eventually totalling 461,582. A new record cumulative quarter-final crowd was set on Friday at 78,407, with another game in this round still to go.
For a federation jeered for being too small to host the European Championship during the bidding process in 2022, such numbers are validation.
But there is also the potential for longer-lasting impact. 'Conservative' was the word Haenni used to describe the nation's historic relationship with women's football, a simple enough word carrying heavy baggage — from the outright banning of the sport in the 1920s to hostility towards women who defied it and eventually an apathetic acceptance of its existence.
'To actually see a Swiss country, which is quite reserved, make this kind of fun, follow women's football like this… ,' Dinges drifts off. Because for someone who was once one of a few hundred singing the anthem in an echo, the sentence has no clear end. Neither does this movement.
Ensuring it is positive relies on harnessing the imagination that has so obviously been captured here. England provide a compelling blueprint. After hosting, and winning, Euro 2022, women's football enjoyed exponential growth in the country. According to its Football Association (FA), by 2024 129,000 more girls became involved in school football across the host cities. Another 34,025 more women and girls were participating in football for recreational purposes, plus a further 10,356 playing competitively. The total attendance during the 2022-23 Women's Super League (WSL) season surpassed 680,000, 172 per cent higher than the 2021-22 season.
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For a nation still without a professional domestic league (the Switzerland Women's Super League operates as semi-professional), such growth is ambitious but not out of the equation. The Swiss FA launched a project looking to the future which runs to the end of 2027. Targets are set to double the number of girls and women playing football in Switzerland from 40,000 to 80,000 by 2027, with the number of women working as coaches and referees also to be doubled from 2,500 to 5,000. There are also aims to at least double the number of the league's consumers (TV viewers and social media followers).
But its main ambition is precisely that which was burned into a crimson-painted 2×2 cardboard placard. To stay. To maintain the present in the future.
'People showing up afterwards, like England,' says Dinges. 'That's the dream.'
At full time, the stadium remained flooded in red, fans applauding the players as they made their way around the pitch. For now, they are staying.