6

Host: SC SchwyzTarget not accessible

Marmi finds a soccer ball. He approaches the leather ball cautiously and nudges it with his nose. So that’s football, he thinks to himself. He’d like to try that too.

And here he is in front of a big stadium. Marmi is overcome with excitement and immediately joins the queue. He stands up high on his hind legs to get a better view.

The stadium may be large, but Marmi knows his way around tunnels and corridors. He watches the people as they fetch drinks and look for their reserved seats. A man explains to Marmi that a football match in the fan zone could be dangerous for a small creature like him and that he should protect himself from crowds.

But it can also be dangerous for the players. Foul! “That must hurt”, Marmi thinks again. And the red card comes out immediately. It wasn’t introduced until the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Football itself is much older. Its first forerunners were seen in China, in the second millennium BC. The game in its modern form originated in Great Britain in the middle of the 19th century. The first rules were drawn up in 1848. People often forget that Switzerland was one of the first countries to adopt the new sport. FC St. Gallen was founded in 1879 and the Swiss Football Association (later a founding member of FIFA) in 1895.

A certain toughness is part of the game. The players protect themselves as best they can. Every year, a prize is awarded for the fairest clubs in Switzerland. The leader of the Fair Play Trophy in March 2024 is SC Schwyz, a third division club. The fairest professional club in the Super League is FC Basel 1893.

Marmi is watching the game from the top of the stadium. He cheers along with the crowd and drinks a coke. Marmi is fascinated by how you can feel so much love for a club. He decides to take a football back to his family.