Severino Minelli Milaim Rama Xherdan Shaqiri BENJAMIN STEFFEN* Another Swiss men’s international football match. Many of us know the routine. Busy restaurants and bars. A cacophony of chanting and cheering. A red sea of Swiss flags and shirts. September 2023 in the Kosovan capital Pristina. Another Swiss men’s international football match. Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri, the most famous Swiss footballers of their generation, are sons of Kosovan immigrants. “Xhaka, you’re in the heart of Kosovo,” says a placard held by a child in the crowd. Xhaka has told the media that Pristina feels like home from home. His parents moved to Switzerland to give him and his brother a better life. Younger sibling Taulant plays football for Albania. He and Granit met on opposing sides of the pitch at Euro 2016. Then you have Breel Embolo, who was born in Cameroon but grew up in Basel just like the Xhaka brothers. Embolo played against his country of birth at the 2022 World Cup. He even scored the winning goal. “Breel is like a little brother to me,” said the Cameroon coach after the match. Football is a vehicle for integration, uniting people and countries. Switzerland jumped on the integration train earlier than other nations. It started with players like Severino Minelli, who was born in 1909 and whose father had arrived in Switzerland with the first wave of Italian immigrants. Minelli made his debut for Switzerland in 1930 and went on to Excitement ahead of Euro 2024 (and Euro 2025?) June will see the Swiss men’s national football team competing again in the finals of a major tournament. The multicultural squad has been hailed as a success for integration – overshadowing their female counterparts who still struggle for recognition. make 80 international appearances – a national record at the time. SwissKosovan hero Granit Xhaka is now the most capped Swiss player in history. The first player with Kosovan roots to pull on the Switzerland shirt was Milaim Rama back in 2003. Members of the Kosovan diaspora in other countries received their first caps later. Kubilay Türkyilmaz was the first Swiss international of Turkish descent, making his debut for the national side in 1988. It was not until over ten years later that Mustafa Dogan became the first player with two Turkish parents to play for Germany. After Türkyilmaz came the Yakin brothers, Hakan and Murat, the latter now being the national coach. Murat was born in Basel in 1974, but it took almost 20 years for him to obtain Swiss citizenship. The then Federal Councillor Adolf Ogi, no less, called Yakin’s naturalisation a matter of “considerable national importance”. At least that is how the story went. Admittedly, it was a good story. Ogi Granit Xhaka Murat Yakin Breel Embolo Swiss Review / May 2024 / No.3 Sport 14
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