A football fairytale is on the cards in Switzerland, where FC Thun, newly-promoted from the second division, are comfortably leading the Super League and motoring towards the title.
Thun’s extraordinary run has left the likes of Young Boys and defending champions Basel trailing in their wake.
Comparisons have been made with newly-promoted Kaiserslautern winning the Bundesliga in 1998, underdogs Leicester City lifting the Premier League trophy in 2016 or Mjallby, a team from a fishing village, winning the Swedish title last year.
According to Transfermarkt, the Thun squad has the second-lowest market value in the 12-team Swiss Super League, at 16 million euros ($19 million) -- way below Young Boys at 67 million euros.
Thun won promotion from the Challenge League last season, ending a five-year spell in the Swiss second tier.
Club president Andres Gerber said they set the “courageous” target of finishing in the top half of the 12-team Super League.
But 22 matches in, Thun are nine points ahead of second-placed Lugano, with St. Gallen, Basel and Sion trailing further behind.
They have scored the most goals and conceded the joint-fewest.
“What we do is not so complicated: it’s the opposite,” Gerber told AFP.
He said the team had “good players with a lot of confidence, and they get better from game to game”.
Cementing their credentials, Thun won 2-1 at Basel last weekend, deflating the 26,000-strong crowd at St. Jakob-Park.
Thun travel to Geneva to face struggling Servette on Sunday.
Thun’s home is the smart-looking, 10,000-capacity Stockhorn Arena. The stadium and its artificial turf hosted three matches during last year’s women’s European championships.
Thun’s 2009-10 and 2024-25 second division titles are the biggest honours the club has won since its foundation in 1898.
But excitement is building in the Bernese Oberland at the prospect of the Swiss title coming to Thun, a German-speaking lakeside town of 45,000 people dominated by its castle.
“You can hear it and feel it everywhere. It’s fantastic,” said Gerber.
The former Thun captain and Swiss international believes a solid team ethic and long-term continuity are key to the club’s success.
“I’ve been here 23 years, we have many staff here for 15 years. That’s really important because we all know each other. We know the culture in Thun,” he said.
“In our region, we are not too loud. We are modest. We prefer to do it, not talk too much about it.
“It’s really a team. It’s not big money and big names.”
Manager Mauro Lustrinelli, 49, is a Thun legend, providing, like Gerber, continuity from the club’s previous peak.
He scored 20 goals for Thun in 2004-05, driving them to second in the Super League -- hitherto their best-ever finish.
The club went on to play in the UEFA Champions League group stage where they finished third in their group behind Arsenal and Ajax but ahead of Sparta Prague.
The former Switzerland striker, who featured at the 2006 World Cup, took the manager’s job at Thun in 2022.
Lustrinelli has quietly forged a close-knit unit without superstars, building a team that doesn’t necessarily dominate every game but is exceptionally efficient in its approach, blending talent, team spirit and clear tactics.
Winning the Swiss second division and then the first division back-to-back has only been done once before: Grasshopper Zurich completed the feat in 1952.
Gerber insisted there was no point thinking about the title and wasting energy that should go into the game.
“There are still 16 games left and that’s why we stay cool,” he said.
“Nobody was thinking that after 22 matches we would be first. That was impossible. We are also surprised!
“But now we know we are really good -- it’s not just coincidence.
“It’s changing in our heads how we think, how we talk. But we stay with both feet on the ground,” he said.
“There is no risk that we forget who we are.”
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