With FC Vaduz, a club from Liechtenstein has qualified for the group stage of a European Cup for the first time – Vaduz plays second-rate in everyday life.
It was just before 11 p.m. in the Rapid Vienna stadium on Thursday evening (08/25/2022) when the last loud whistle was heard and the men in red could hardly believe their luck. The FC Vaduz players jumped around, hugged each other or simply collapsed.
The supervisors, coaches and substitutes stormed the pitch – scenes that are familiar from many football stadiums after great successes. But this success of the most successful Liechtenstein club is quite special.
Successful at the 27th attempt
After the 1-1 draw in the first leg, Tunahan Cicek’s goal in the 22nd minute was enough to make Liechtenstein’s dream come true. Rapid, who had strengthened themselves with Guido Burgstaller, who is well known in Germany before the season, definitely helped. Kevin Wimmer saw the red card for an emergency brake after 35 minutes.
A team from Liechtenstein has never made it into the group stage of a European competition. And FC Vaduz has tried it several times. Since the 1992/93 season, the team from the capital of the principality has failed 26 times in various qualifying rounds, including at Eintracht Frankfurt in 2019. The 27th attempt was now successful.
“Everyone just laughed”
The Liechtenstein “Volksblatt” wrote about one the morning after the triumph in Vienna “Sensation”. Vaduz striker Manuel Sutter made the importance of this 1-0 win clear: “When we said the group stage would be cool, everyone just laughed”said the 31-year-old Austrian. “We’ve done it now and we deserve to be there. That’s the beauty of football. It’s a miracle that the outsider prevails and that was the case for us.”
A miracle also because FC Vaduz lives between two worlds. The club has always been part of the Swiss association system, rose to the top division for the first time in 2008 and a total of three times, but was relegated just as often. Coach Alessandro Mangiarratti’s team is currently second to bottom in the Challenge League, the second Swiss division. Five games, two points – that’s the gray everyday life of the league.
48 cup wins – world record
However, FC Vaduz has long since outgrown football in the principality, which has a population of 38,000. 48 national cup successes are on FC Vaduz’s letterhead – no other club in the world has won so many national cup titles. In the cup, Vaduz does not compete in Switzerland.
And these practically annual triumphs in the domestic cup are the basis for European dreams every year. Because Vaduz cannot qualify for the European Cup via the Swiss leagues – even if Vaduz were to play first-class.
A dream for the red-clad players from Vaduz, who achieved historic things in Vienna, is to kindle something like football enthusiasm at home. At least that’s what midfielder Kristijan Dobras is hoping for: “Maybe we’ve woken up a few people by getting into the Conference League and maybe 20, 30 more people will come to the home game next Sunday.” On average, around 1,500 fans come to the Rheinpark Stadium during the day-to-day running of the league.