2014 soccer world cup team profile Switzerland

LOL! By matthew

byrne

About the World cup

The Swiss held it in 1954

The FIFA World Cup™ is the biggest single-event sporting competition in the world and is contested by the senior men's national teams from the 208 Member Associations of FIFA. FIFA is based in Zurich, Switzerland.

The competition has been played every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War.

It fulfils FIFA’s objectives to touch the world, develop the game, and build a better future through a variety of ways.

Tournament formatThe current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of one month – this phase is often called the Final Competition. A qualification phase, the Preliminary Competition which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).

Team

The Swiss national football team (also known as the Schweitzer Nati in German, La Nati in French, Squadra nazionale in Italian) is the national football team of Switzerland. The team is controlled by the Swiss Football Association.

The team's logo, ASF-SFV, represents the Swiss Football Association's initials in Switzerland's official languages: ASFrepresents both French (Association Suisse de

Football) and Italian (Associazione Svizzera di Football), and SFV is German (Schweizerischer Fussballverband). In Romansh, the association is abbreviated

as ASB (Associaziun Svizra da Ballape).Its best performances in the World Cup have been reaching the quarter-finals three times, in 1934, 1938 and when the country hosted the event in 1954. Switzerland

also won silver at the 1924 Olympics. The youth teams have been more successful, winning the 2002 U-17 European Championship and the 2009 U-17 World cupIn 2006, Switzerland set a FIFA World Cup record by being eliminated from the

competition despite not conceding a goal, losing to Ukraine in a penalty shootout in the last 16, by failing to score a single penalty – becoming the first national team

in Cup history to do this. They would not concede a goal until their second group stage game in the2010 FIFA World Cup, giving up a goal in the 74th minute

against Chile, setting a World Cup Finals record for consecutive minutes without conceding a goal.

Switzerland co-hosted Euro 2008 with Austria, making their third appearance in the competition. As with the two previous appearances, they did not clear the group

stages.

History• The establishment of the Swiss Confederation is dated to 1 August 1291, which is celebrated

annually as Swiss National Day. Switzerland has a long history of neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002.

• There are four main languages, German, French, Italian and Romansh. • Switzerland is a confederation of 26 Cantons. There is a Federal parliament and a parliament

at Canton (similar to county) level.• The Old Swiss Confederacy was an alliance among three initial communities (cantons today)

of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden.

Bern is the capital of Switzerland

SwitzerlandSwitzerland is famous for its ski resorts

And it agricultural landIts banks generate € 31.0 billion

representing 6.2% of the country's GDP

Fact fileCapital city Bern

Largest city Zürich

Mountain range alps

Largest lake Lake Geneva

Smallest lake Sucherghann sea

Longest river Rhine 1,233 km

Shortest river Arve 102 km

population 7.997 million (2012)

The end