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Get to know all the players in the Switzerland squad participating at the Women’s World Cup this summer.
Goalkeepers
Gaëlle Thalmann
Date of birth: 18th of January 1986
Club: Real Betis
The veteran goalkeeper is 37 now but has worked very hard to regain her status as No 1 under Inka Grings. Nicknamed "Gaga", Thalmann is one of few national team players who come from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, having grown up in Bulle in the Fribourg region. Thalmann has already played for 16 different clubs in four countries, frequently returning home to represent clubs such as Grasshoppers Zurich, Basel and Servette.
Currently with Betis, she also works part-time for the Swiss Football Association, where she heads a project to encourage more young girls to play football. Having suffered a cruciate ligament injury in 2014, she made a remarkable recovery to play at the 2015 World Cup. “It was four hours rehab a day, and then a bit more in the evening,” she said at the time.
Livia Peng
Date of birth: 14th of March 2002
Club: Häcken
Imagine making your debut for the national team, only to find out afterwards that the game will not count? Well, that is what happened to Peng when she, after many call-ups, was finally given the chance to play against Denmark in November 2022. The two coaches agreed before the game that they could make eight substitutions but a month and a half later the Swiss FA got a letter saying the friendly would not count as the maximum amount of changes is six.
Peng was given her first goalkeeper gloves for Christmas at the age of eight – she has still got them – and at the age of 17 she joined perennial champions FC Zurich. “I am very focused, strong-willed and aim to reach my goal,” she says on her own website. “If I hadn’t had those characteristics I would probably still be in Graubünden.” Joined Swedish side Häcken in 2022 but spent the second part of last season on loan at Levante to get more playing time.
Seraina Friedli
Date of birth: 20th of March 1993
Club: Anderlecht
Took a short break in April to recharge her batteries and missed two international friendlies. She is aware that it may count against her when it comes to being the No 1 at the World Cup but on the other hand she was outstanding as FC Zurich won the Swiss league, with some crucial saves in the final against Servette.
Grew up in the Engadin region, where youngsters tend to become skiers. Friedli, however, took another path, FC Zurich having noticed that there was an exceptionally talented goalkeeper in Graubünden playing at clubs such as FC Lusitanos and FC Thusis Cazis. “When I joined FC Zürich Women I was always nervous because of the quality of the players I was facing,” she said once. “However, I learned to control my nervousness through breathing exercises and meditation.” Is a sports scientist with a master's degree in elite sports.
Defenders
Julia Stierli
Date of birth: 3rd of April 1997
Club: FC Zürich
Has been with FC Zurich since 2014, turning down offers from abroad to be able to carry on with her studies to become a physiotherapist. She has had to miss games with the national team because of it but says: "To combine the two things takes good organisation, good planning and a certain understanding from everyone. But both football and the work as a physiotherapist give me an enormous amount.”
After the World Cup, she will complete her degree with an internship. The tall defender played as a striker in her junior years but in the national team, she has secured a place in the centre of defence.
Laura Felber
Date of birth: 17th of August 2001
Club: Servette Chênois
One of the younger players in the squad, Felber made her debut in the 15-0 record win against Moldova last September but was not called up again until the preliminary World Cup squad was announced.
When told that each player at the World Cup would be paid around £25,000 she told Tribune de Genève: “Money is not what interests me. The sum makes me laugh a little actually because it is a huge one for me. I’m a student and don’t really make a living from what I get paid at Servette.” The central defender has played more than 100 games already for her club and has taken some of her exams for her degree in sports science but had to postpone some of them until after the World Cup.
Ella Touon
Date of birth: 7th of August 2003
Club: Essen
At the age of 15 Touon was still playing with the boys in the Rapperswil-Jona Under-15s. “I used to say that if I have to play in a women’s team one day I’ll quit,” she says now with a laugh as an established Frauen-Bundesliga player with Essen.
The previous Switzerland coach, Nils Nielsen, was a huge admirer of the right-sided defender and called her up for the first time at the age of 17. Touon was included in the squad for last year’s Euro 2022 but tore an ankle ligament in the build-up and missed out.
Noelle Maritz
Date of birth: 23rd of December 1995
Club: Arsenal
A key player for club and country, Maritz has been at Arsenal since 2020 after picking up five Bundesliga titles and a Champions League win with Wolfsburg in seven successful years. Born in the United States – and therefore has US citizenship – she and her family moved to Switzerland when she was 10 years old.
It did not take her long to stand out and, via FC Wil, she joined FC Zurich in 2011 and has not looked back since. Arsenal teammate Lia Wälti says Maritz can be quite foul-mouthed on the pitch. “She can explode sometimes and direct some not-so-nice words towards an opponent or the referee,” Wälti said. Fun fact: was able to celebrate her 100th cap twice as the first game was declared void because of too many substitutions taking place.
Luana Bühler
Date of birth: 28th of April 1996
Club: Free agent
One of five siblings, Bühler says growing up in a big family taught her to fight for what she wants. As far as football is concerned she has certainly had to battle. She has torn the cruciate ligament in both knees, along with sustaining meniscal tears, which were operated on.
The covid break may, in fact, have saved her career. She worked extremely hard on her strength during the pandemic and has impressed for Hoffenheim and the national team since the restart. Now a leader in the Swiss defence, she is looking for a new challenge after five years in Germany.
Lara Marti
Date of birth: 21st September 1999
Club: Bayer Leverkusen
Has always liked a challenge. Born in Basel she started playing football at a very young age because of her older brother. Signed for FC Basel in her early teens and made her debut in the top flight at the age of 16.
Four years later, she was ready for the next step though, signing for Bayer Leverkusen to pursue her dream of playing Champions League football. “I came to a point where I needed a new challenge. I was living at home and had all my friends around me. I was in my comfort zone. The move to Leverkusen came at absolutely the right time,” she said. Her role model is the USA’s two-time world champion Alex Morgan.
Viola Calligaris
Date of birth: 17th of March 1996
Club: Levante
The Swiss-Italian citizen from Sarnen played alongside boys up until the age of 15, playing regularly for SC Emmen United and finishing second in the Coca Cola League with "her" boys. "I had a great time with them," Calligaris says. Once a striker, then a midfielder, she now plays in defence.
After four seasons with Young Boys, she moved to Spain in 2017 and has since played for Atlético Madrid (where she won two league titles), Valencia and Levante. Tore an ACL in 2021 but fought back to make the Euro 2022 squad and hopes to play in Italy one day. "My grandfather would love to see me in the Juve kit one day," she says with a laugh.
Eseosa Aigbogun
Date of birth: 23rd of May 1993
Club: FC Paris
Both Aigbogun’s parents are from Nigeria and the player was offered the chance to play for the Super Falcons but opted to represent Switzerland. Made history by scoring in the country’s first World Cup in 2015 while playing as a forward.
These days she is a full-back and arrives at the World Cup after a strong season in France where her team, FC Paris, finished third in the league behind powerhouses Lyon and Paris St-Germain. In 2017 she told Blick how football helped her through her parents’ divorce. “They divorced early and I was always in the middle but football distracted me,” she said. “But football also brought us together as a family. When I have a game it is only about football and in those moments everything is good.”
Nadine Riesen
Date of birth: 11th of April 2000
Club: FC Zürich
The 23-year-old full-back was a late call-up for last summer’s Euros, and came on for the second group game against Sweden. Born in St Gallen, she moved to YB Women in 2019 before joining FC Zurich two years later. There she won the double in her first season. Riesen is athletic and fast on the pitch and seemingly always cheerful off it.
She has three older sisters and spends several hours a day on the train, commuting between her home in Bern and Zurich. “I work as a childminder between 11 to 2.30 in the afternoon and then I have to get to Zurich for 5pm to be there for training,” she told Blick. “All my teammates have to work too and it is hard sometimes when I look at all the bills and try to work out how to pay them.”
Midfielders
Amira Arfaoui
Date of birth: 8th of August 1999
Club: Bayer Leverkusen
If Arfaoui had listened to her doctor in 2019, she would have stopped playing football. The girl from Bern had just undergone a major meniscus operation, the third in a row on her right knee, and was advised to quit the game. But she refused to give up and two years later she was Swiss champions with Servette.
Now with Bayer Leverkusen, she has shown that she belongs in the Frauen-Bundesliga and signed a contract extension this summer. "The most important thing is to believe in yourself, even if others don't," she says. In 2015, Arfaoui was part of the Swiss team that reached the final of the European Under-17 Championship in Iceland.
Riola Xhemaili
Date of birth: 5th of March 2003
Club: Wolfsburg
Having made her international debut at 17, Xhemaili was a regular in the squad at 18 and is this summer joining Champions League finalists Wolfsburg after two impressive years at Freiburg. She is, without a doubt, one of Switzerland’s greatest talents yet the competition for places in midfield is such that she is not a guaranteed starter at the World Cup.
At a young age Xhemaili was invited to the Swiss FA performance centre in Biel but decided to stay at home and play in the boys' team at Solothurn. It is fair to say that it paid off. Apart from her qualities on the pitch Birgit Bauer, head of the women’s and girls’ football department at SC Freiburg, told goal.com that Xhemaili “is never in a bad mood. She’s always in a good mood and spreads this good mood.” Always plays with her socks only halfway pulled up.
Seraina Piubel
Date of birth: 2nd of June 2000
Club: FC Zürich
The attacking midfielder was born into the game with both her parents, Sandra Piubel and Urs Meier, having played at the highest level in Switzerland. Maier won the Swiss league on several occasions in the 1980s and 1990s with Grasshoppers before becoming a coach.
Piubel was the outstanding player of the 2022-23 Swiss Super League and is already an option for Inka Grings, although she is likely to start the World Cup on the bench. There have also been reports that Barcelona are interested in signing her.
Marion Rey
Date of birth: 21st of March 1999
Club: FC Zürich
The midfielder grew up in Alsace with a French father and a Swiss mother but it was her grandfather who introduced her to football. Her role model was the French player Camille Abily but she did not join a club until she was 10 as her parents did not allow her to do so before that.
Having represented France at youth level the former Swiss national team manager, Nils Nielsen, convinced her to switch allegiance and she made her debut in the 15-0 win against Moldova in September last year. In 2022 she moved to FC Zurich after six years at Basel and immediately won the title. She works part-time as a civil engineer.
Coumba Sow
Date of birth: 27th of August 1994
Club: Servette Chênois
One of the team’s most experienced players, the daughter of a Senegalese father and a Dutch mother, she grew up in Zurich's Stadtkreis 11 and started playing football at the age of twelve with the Zurich neighbourhood club SV Höngg. She often played with her cousin Djibril too. He is now with Eintracht Frankfurt and also plays for the Swiss national team.
She has played in Switzerland, the US and in France although she returned to the country of her birth in the winter to get more playing time, joining Servette. Told Watson.ch about experiencing racism while growing up in Switzerland. “Me and my dad needed to buy a pair of boots quickly so ran into a shop in Zurich,” she said. “I noticed this police car was following us and then they stopped us, starting to ask my dad for ID and when he couldn’t find it they asked me if he was really my dad. With my white mum that would never have happened.”
Lia Wälti
Date of birth: 19th of April 1993
Club: Arsenal
The 30-year-old is the tactician in the Swiss midfield and the extended arm of the coach, Inka Grings. In April, she caused a stir when she left early from a get-together because she was physically and mentally exhausted after a long season and she was then injured in the game against Everton after a bad tackle from Agnes Beever-Jones. The Everton player was distraught and Wälti posted a supportive message on social media, saying: Football is a contact sport, these injuries are unfortunately part of our game. No need for any hate or bad comments towards Agnes Beever-Jones please. Thank you!”
She joined the World Cup preparations at the same time as everyone else and is optimistic she will be 100 per cent fit when the tournament starts. Wälti was born in the ice hockey village of Langnau in Emmental and the Wältis used to make an ice rink in their garden during the winter. Her father introduced her to football though and after playing with boys up to Under-16 level at YB, she switched to the women’s team and was soon their captain. Joined Arsenal in 2018 and recently extended her contract with the club.
Sandrine Mauron
Date of birth: 19th of December 1996
Club: Servette Chênois
The 26-year-old is now back in Switzerland with Servette after three years in the Frauen-Bundesliga with FFC Frankfurt (which was then taken over by Eintracht Frankfurt. In Germany, the player from the small village of Valeyres, was a highly respected impact sub who often came on to change games.
An unused substitute at Euro 2017 she featured in all three group stages matches five years later in England. Remembers starting out as a six-year-old at FC Grandson-Tuileries. “The shorts were so big that I had to roll them up two or three times,” she said in an interview.
Géraldine Reuteler
Date of birth: 21st of April 1999
Club: Eintracht Frankfurt
Left home at the age of 12 to further her career at one of the Swiss FA’s youth education centres and was playing for FC Lucerne from the age of 14. A year later she made her first-team debut and became a key player over the next four seasons.
After completing a commercial degree, she moved to Eintracht Frankfurt in 2018 and has been in arguably the form of her life this season. Has already amassed more than 40 caps at the age of 24 and his hoping to make an impact in Australia and New Zealand. Suffered a cruciate ligament injury in 2021 but returned 349 days later, saying “it felt as if I had not been away”. One of her tattoos says: “The world is bigger than your brain, stop living inside your head.”
Forwards
Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic
Date of birth: 3rd of October 1990
Club: Barcelona
The player from Thun with Croatian roots has been a fixture in the women's national team for many, many years now and can also look back on a strong club career with stints in the Bundesliga, the NWSL and Liga F. Not that she wants to look back though, she is all about looking forward. At Barcelona she is mainly used as an impact sub who can play across all position up front and came on with 11 minutes remaining as Barça beat Wolfsburg 3-2 in this year’s Champions League final.
She is Switzerland's most capped player and record goalscorer, having played in almost 150 international matches, finding the net roughly every other game. Loves riding a motorbike but her Barcelona contract, which runs to 2024, prevents her from enjoying that at the moment.
Ramona Bachmann
Date of birth: 25th of December 1990
Club: Paris Saint-Germain
Bachmann is an institution in Swiss football and has been with the national team for 16 years now. Arguably the most talented Swiss female player of all time she is a good dribbler with an excellent positional sense and has won an array of cups and leagues in countries such as Sweden, England, Germany and France. The Champions League is the only title to have eluded her so far. Showed early on that she was made of sterner stuff than most by moving up to the north of Sweden to join Umeå IK at the age of 16. "I was never homesick, the club looked after me so well," she says.
Got married just before the World Cup and a big party is planned at the end of the year in La Réunion First, however, she wants to celebrate success with the national team. “We were lucky with the draw but we take one step at a time,” she says. One of the lessons from Euro 2022 is that not everyone was in top shape, something they are looking to rectify this year.
Fabienne Humm
Date of birth: 20th of December 1986
Club: FC Zürich
A superbly dedicated player who has been with the national team since 2015, when she made history by scoring the fastest hat-trick in women’s World Cup history, taking a mere 274 seconds to find the net three times against Ecuador.
Retired from international football in 2017 but Inka Grings’ predecessor, Nils Nielsen, convinced her to make a comeback. Six years on and she is still here. The scorer of the goal that took Switzerland to the World Cup, she has never left FC Zürich despite plenty of offers, as she likes working in an office on the side. In fact, such is her commitment that she worked during the Euros in England last summer.
Meriame Terchoun
Date of birth: 27th of October 1995
Club: Dijon FCO
Was included in the squad for the 2017 Euros as a fresh-faced 21-year-old but then injuries started to take their toll (she has torn her ACL three times), she had depression and the beginnings of burnout. A psychologist suggested a warm-weather break and after a visit to Qatar she joined FC Zurich just to have a bit of fun.
That attitude saw her game reach another level and her goals at club level led to a comeback with the national team. Included in the Euro 2022 squad but did not play in England, she joined French side Dijon that summer. Terchoun works for the players' union SAFP and has been a social media expert for the TV channel Blue. Ramona Bachmann is one of her best friends.
Alisha Lehmann
Date of birth: 21st of January 1999
Club: Aston Villa
Has established herself at Aston Villa after three years at West Ham, which included a loan to Everton. She arrives at the World Cup in good form, having scored five league goals for the Birmingham side this season, her highest tally since 2018-19.
Made herself unavailable for Euro 2022 as she did not feel mentally ready to participate but says she feels in a better position now. A social media phenomenon, she is the most followed female football player in the world with around 13.5 million followers on Instagram and 8.7 million on Tiktok, leaving Alex Morgan as well as compatriots such as Roger Federer, Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri in their wake.
Iman Beney
Date of birth: 23rd of July 2006
Club: Young Boys
Beney is the youngest player in the Swiss squad and is not turning 17 until two days after Switzerland's World Cup opener against the Philippines. The striker impressed at the Under-17 Euros in Tallinn in May when Switzerland reached the semi-finals.
"She has absolutely earned her inclusion through her performances," the coach, Inka Grings, commented when announcing the squad. Beney is the daughter of the former goalkeeper Nicolas Beney, who played for Aarau, Wil, Schaffhausen, Yverdon and Sion among others. Her aunt is Noémie Beney, a former swiss national player. Her idol is Neymar.
Written by Christian Finkbeiner (Blick in Switzerland) for the Guardian.
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