Young Swiss side beginning to mature

Famed for ski slopes, chocolate and pen knives, Switzerland is now desperate to gain respect for it’s footballing talent. James Whelan reports from Berne.

SWITZERLAND’S national football team has been talking a lot about cheese recently - not in an effort to confirm national stereotypes, but rather to challenge them.

The cheese in question has been the ‘petit Suisse’ - a sweet, creamy concoction that actually originates from the French region of Normandy but which has come to serve as a taunt for the ‘little Swiss footballers’ so often overshadowed by their more illustrious European neighbours.