Fifteen points. With seven games still to play. That gap at the top of the Swiss Super League tells a story that Swiss football — and frankly European football — has rarely seen before. FC Thun, a club that nearly went bankrupt just two years ago, stands on the verge of winning the Swiss top-flight title in its first season back after promotion. Even Leicester City’s miraculous 2015-16 Premier League triumph had a full season to build its legend. Thun is doing it faster, and with less.
From near-extinction to the summit of Swiss football
The town of Thun sits beside a glacial lake in the Swiss Alps, home to just 45,000 people. FC Thun, founded in 1898, had never won a major trophy in 128 years of existence before this season. Two second-division titles and two Swiss Cup runner-up finishes represent the entirety of the club’s silverware. That context makes what is happening right now almost surreal.
Club president Andres Gerber — a former Swiss international defender who spent six years playing for Thun — took charge in 2020, arriving at a club sliding toward collapse. Relegation hit that same year. Chinese multi-club owner Chien Lee and board member Beat Fahrni stepped in multiple times to keep the lights on, most critically in early 2024. The club survived a play-off heartbreak in 2023-24, then won the Swiss Challenge League — the second division — by 11 points last season. Back-to-back promotions and a title ? Only Grasshopper Zurich managed that feat, back in 1952.
Gerber himself draws a parallel with another famous underdog story. “It’s a bit like when Leicester won the Premier League,” he told BBC Sport. He swims in Lake Thun every morning, rain or snow, a personal ritual he began in memory of his brother who died of cancer in 2021. The discipline, the resilience, the refusal to give in — those qualities seem to run through the entire club.
Swiss football journalist Craig King put it plainly : “It would be a completely unique and unbelievable achievement from a club that simply has no right to be tearing up the script in the way they have.” Basel, the defending champions, carry a squad valued at £51.5m. BSC Young Boys, 17-time Swiss champions and regular European participants based 19 miles up the road in Bern, sit at £61m. Thun’s entire squad is worth £13.8m according to Transfermarkt — the second-lowest in the 12-team league. Yet here they are.
The tactical blueprint turning low possession into dominance
Head coach Mauro Lustrinelli is the architect of this transformation. At 50, he built his reputation at this very club — scoring 20 goals in 30 games during Thun’s extraordinary 2004-05 season, then netting twice in a Champions League play-off win over Malmö to send Thun into the group stage, where they finished above Sparta Prague. Returning as coach, he brought with him a clear and uncompromising philosophy.
“If we can score with two passes, why do we have to make 10 or 20 ?” Lustrinelli told BBC Sport. His team presses high, wins the ball early, and attacks through rapid vertical transitions. Thun average just 46.5% possession this season — lower than eight other Super League sides — yet rank first for touches in the opposition penalty area. That statistical contradiction captures everything about how this team operates.
| Club | Squad market value | League position |
|---|---|---|
| BSC Young Boys | £61m | Mid-table |
| FC Basel | £51.5m | Trailing |
| FC Thun | £13.8m | 1st (+15 pts) |
Lustrinelli kept faith with the players who earned promotion rather than rebuilding the squad. North Macedonian striker Elmin Rastoder scored 13 goals across three second-division campaigns — he already has 12 in the top flight this season alone. Christopher Ibayi has nine goals after managing just three last year. Academy product Franz-Ethan Meichtry has added eight more. The squad also benefits from the experience of Leonardo Bertone and Kastriot Imeri — both title winners with Young Boys — plus the leadership of captain Marco Burki. King describes their style as not pretty, but smart, a team that wins games even when outplayed by sheer tactical cunning. In February, they set a Swiss top-flight record of 10 consecutive wins, surpassing the seven-game run they themselves had set back in 2004-05.
What Thun’s title run means beyond the trophy
Winning the Super League would place Thun alongside a select group of football’s great underdog champions. The list is short and speaks for itself :
- Kaiserslautern, who won the Bundesliga in 1997-98 as a freshly promoted side
- Leicester City, Premier League winners in 2015-16 at 5000-1 odds
- Swedish club Mjällby, who claimed their domestic title in 2025
For Lustrinelli, the meaning runs deeper than sport. “My mission is to help this club, the players, to reach something special and historical. To go to the glory. But it’s not just a mission, it’s a joy,” he said. He wants Thun’s story to show young players — the kids sitting in the 10,000-capacity Stockhorn Arena watching their local heroes — that football still rewards belief over budgets.
Even the opposition agrees. Christian Fassnacht, a former Thun winger now at Young Boys, offered no bitterness : “That’s why we love football, because it has its own rules, and stories like this go around the world. All of Switzerland is happy for FC Thun.” Gerber’s morning swim in the lake may soon have company — captain Burki hinted the squad will be joining him after the title is confirmed. “I cannot speak for everyone, but I think they have no other choice,” he smiled. What Thun have built deserves to outlast one season : the real question now is whether Swiss football’s establishment will finally invest in what makes smaller clubs sustainable rather than simply spending more.
