Why Liechtenstein are happy to be FIFA's lowest-ranked European team

RUGGELL, Liechtenstein -- It's just gone 6 p.m. local time at Freizeitpark Widau in Ruggell and Liechtenstein's women's team are hosting a friendly against Namibia in mid-July, a day before the rest of Europe wraps up the group stage of qualification for Euro 2025. Liechtenstein, a principality of around 40,000 people that sits between Austria and Switzerland , are one of the few unranked nations in FIFA's world ranking (their African opponents sit 126th among the 193 active teams), but that is about to change.

Ruggell is the perennial home for the women's national team as attendances remain modest and they would not fill the Rheinpark Stadion in Vaduz (which has a capacity of less than 6,000 seated) where the men play. But the town could soon be in the spotlight as the Liechtenstein Football Association (LFV) has submitted an official bid to add it to the catalogue of potential bases for teams competing at Euro 2025 in Switzerland.

The sun is shining, children are hoisting themselves onto the advertising hoardings to get a clearer view of the action, and the crowd is bubbling with friends and family of the home side.

It's an unusual match. In the women's game, African nations -- especially those outside of the continent's best -- rarely travel as far as the tiny landlocked nation in central Europe. Having only been in existence since April 2021, it is the first time that Liechtenstein have played a team from another continent, but this double-header of friendlies (with the second match occurring in three days' time) is enough to satisfy FIFA's criteria and grant them their maiden world ranking.

The game ends in a 1-1 draw (while the return game will finish 2-0 to Namibia) and SV Meppen's Lena Göppel, one of the few players with a professional grounding, stands head and shoulders above her teammates in the middle of the park. Liechtenstein captain and centre-back Sophia Hürlimann (currently at Winterthur in Switzerland's second tier) also impresses with her reading of the game and makes countless interceptions, while Salomé Stampfli shows spark in attack before tucking home the equaliser -- her second goal for her country and just the 19th in entire history of the senior national team.

Liechtenstein is the second-smallest national team by population with a recognised senior women's team behind British overseas territory Gibraltar [pop.32,000] -- at the time of writing, San Marino [pop. 33,000] lacks one. So it would be easy to assume that the group possesses a small-team attitude or an undeveloped style, and the players, almost all of whom are amateurs with full-time jobs elsewhere, have a lack of ambition. But for those who represented their national team on this summer evening against Namibia, that is far from the truth. A first-ever FIFA ranking of 187th out of 194 is on the way.

A nation without a domestic league

If you have 25 minutes to spare you can drive the length of Liechtenstein, about 24 kilometres (15 miles), from the apex of the country in Ruggell to the mountains in Triesen. There is just one hospital in the capital of Vaduz, but since 2014 it has lacked a maternity ward, meaning any resident has to cross the border to give birth.

The journey by car may not take long but it means very few of the players who represent the national team were actually born in Liechtenstein. Thankfully, the country's close ties with Switzerland mean that, like many land borders in Europe, eyelids are rarely batted when a car or bus crosses from one side to the other.

Everything about the diminutive nation feels like a town, but one that is subdivided into smaller towns -- many of which have their own football teams. For a country this size, there is no structure for a domestic league. Liechtenstein is bordered on three sides by Switzerland, shares the Swiss Franc and speaks a dialect similar to Swiss German, so it relies on the Swiss football league system to play host to its clubs.

To allow for Liechtensteiner men's clubs to participate in Europe, the LFV organises and runs the Liechtenstein Cup for their domestic teams, with FC Vaduz the serial winners. Indeed, it was their recent success that saw them become the first club from Liechtenstein to play in a UEFA tournament group stage -- the 2022-23 UEFA Europa Conference League. But Vaduz, like their six fellow Liechtenstein teams (FC Balzers, USV Eschen/Mauren, FC Ruggell, FC Schaan, FC Triesen, and FC Triesenberg) play their league football in Switzerland and are currently in the second tier (the Dieci Challenge League), a long way from their compatriots who are languishing between the fourth and eight tiers.

There is no equivalent qualifying competition on the women's side, hence why no team from Liechtenstein has never contested the UEFA Women's Champions League.

When it comes to women's football, things are understandably more on the embryonic side. FC Triesen's women's team have been around since the 1980s and play in the Swiss 3.Liga, while there has been encouragement from the LFV for its national-team players to join the same club in an effort to strengthen the team, with Adrienne Krysl tasked with managing the club team as well as national team. And since 2018 there has been more cooperation between the clubs and the LFV in their Mädchenfussball ("girl's football") setup with a greater focus on the clubs offering youth football for local girls in Liechtenstein.

The pride of representing your country

Out of 210 teams in the latest FIFA men's world ranking , Liechtenstein sit 199th. But from FC Vaduz's triumph over Rapid Wien in Europa Conference League qualifying playoffs in 2022-23, to the men's national team forcing a 2-2 draw against Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal in World Cup qualifying in 2004, there is something about the country that promises to punch above its weight when it comes to sport. Even away from football, Liechtenstein have 10 Olympic medals (all in alpine skiing), making it the nation with the most medals per capita and the smallest sovereign state by area to claim an Olympic gold (it has two.)

The Liechtenstein women's national team only played its first game in April 2021 (a 2-1 loss to Luxembourg ). Many of the current team played for the under-16 and U19 teams that predated the senior side by four years, and the creation of a senior team allowed a pathway for the teenagers who had taken their first international steps at youth level.

"I think because there were many girls that played who were born around 2000 or 2001, it kind of made sense that you move up with them and then build with those people into a senior national team," Göppel tells ESPN. "So, it was always a step-by-step process to move on and we all knew that at some point there must be a senior national team."

From the outset, it was clear that Liechtenstein wanted to compete in European tournaments, entering a team into U19 European Championship qualifying in 2022 just six months after the senior team's first-ever game.

In the first round, the U19s cut their teeth with a 2-0 loss to Croatia , a 2-1 defeat to Kosovo , and picked up their first point after a 0-0 draw against Latvia ; six months later, Liechtenstein contested three second-round matches against North Macedonia , Slovenia and Moldova and, while they didn't qualify, they earned another point.

It was a similar story in 2023 as qualification for the U19 Euros got underway: the first round brought about a 0-0 draw against Lithuania , sandwiched by losses to Iceland and the Faroe Islands , before the second round saw them lose to Scotland and Albania .

For the advent and growth of the senior team, caution has been the name of the game, the LFV has made it clear it needs to have a structure and plan in place for the development of women's football. And it is one that preaches patience.

"It is like a fragile plant; you have to handle it very, very carefully, just like a flower. You have to give water: but not too much water, because if you give too much water, then the plant dies, but also too little. In women's football, it's the same, so we have to be very careful and to make it step by step." -- LFV president Hugo Quaderer

Indeed, the country has been taking those steady steps, growing together to improve their lot, and advancing towards their first-ever official FIFA ranking. The next step is to play competitive games, rather than friendlies, and that means taking part in the UEFA Nations League and European Championship qualifiers. But, given their players are having to juggle jobs and lives outside the game, the LFV has been cautious in its approach.

"We are speaking to all the players, asking them if it would be possible for them to take part in the qualification [in the next Nations League cycle]," Quaderer tells ESPN. "And have to we explain to them what it means to play a qualification, because you have this week of football, and if you play twice abroad, then you are away eight or nine days ... And that means for the players [who are amateur] who are studying or working, that is a big challenge."

San Marino's men are the world's worst team and stories of what the players do in their day jobs while also trying to qualify for a European Championship often takes centre stage -- as documented by ESPN's Mark Ogden last year -- but it is a persistent norm for many countries across the women's football landscape. And Liechtenstein are an extreme example.

A double life

For 19-year-old midfielder Stampfli, who in her other life is in the last year of her apprenticeship to become an illustrator specialising in architecture, a typical day looks something like this: "Wake up at 6.30 a.m., work from 7.30 a.m., go home for lunch, and back to work in the afternoon, before going straight to practice until about 8.15 p.m. Then home for dinner and sleep." The teenager is shy when talking to ESPN; her English is limited but she considers her answers and says how much she enjoys her job where she gets to "draw plans for buildings, new houses and schools and stuff."

She reveals her main drive is, "to make her parents proud, but [I] know that they're always proud and yeah ... just to continue being healthy and have fun playing and then look out for how far [I] can come."

In the match against Namibia, it's easy to spot her friends and family on the sidelines. A woman with dark hair wearing a Stampfli shirt hovers around the halfway line, paying rapt attention to the game; while a clutch of women, who look to be in their late teens and early 20s, gather on one of the benches laid out across the concrete and give intermittent cheers and shouts of "Woo, Salomé!" throughout.

"Their first impression is 'wow, that's awesome,'" Stampfli says, when asked how her friends and colleagues feel about her role with the national team. "It's great that you have the chance to do that, to play against different countries, to travel a lot, to have all these great experiences and I think they see it as an honour as well."

Göppel, who was the first Liechtenstein women's player to transfer to Germany when she moved to Essen in January 2024, having previously played for St. Gallen, is now preparing for her first full season with Meppen in Germany's second tier.

The 22-year-old understands the need to keep studying, preparing for whatever comes after her career. And so, even though she spent four years at the University of Louisiana at Monroe getting her bachelor's degree, since returning to Europe she has opted to further her studies and is currently working towards an MBA in business administration, with her training days bisected by study.

This is standard practice in women's football, even in the highest echelons of the game, as a university education is something players of all ages pursue alongside a career as a footballer. Some, like Barcelona midfielder Caroline Graham Hansen , opted to return to Norway in her teens to wrap up her degree before moving to Germany with VfL Wolfsburg in 2014, safe in the knowledge that she had foundations on which to build a post-playing career. Others, like Switzerland international Lia Wälti , balance football at Arsenal with studying for a BSc in business administration and sports management.

Göppel, whose older brother Maximilian plays for Swiss 1. Liga club USV Eschen/Mauren and Lichtenstein's men, spoke of wanting to emulate her sibling, saying:

"We always played football and he was professional as well for some years, so I looked up to him and wanted to be like him... And then I lived my dream [at university] in America because that's the infrastructure you have there. It's just unbelievable for college kids... Then playing with Essen and making my debut [against Bayern Munich ], my dream came true. My family always supported me: they just said do it if you want to."

Going from Lichtenstein to one of the biggest countries in the world, Göppel needed time to adjust when she first moved to Louisianna, not least as it was during the start of a pandemic.

"It was during COVID, so it was different with flying and all the rules they had. But Louisiana has such big hospitality, they're so friendly and stuff, and that made it easy for me to adjust," she says. "The girls there, they were all so happy to have me there and were so fascinated that my country is so small [laughs]. So even like the soccer team was just like a huge family."

As well as those who play "domestically" in Switzerland, such as Stampfli and Katharina Risch at St. Gallen, there are the likes of Julia Benneckenstein (Itawamba Community College) and Felicia Frick (Carson-Newman University) who are currently in the U.S. collegiate system where sport and study are firmly balanced, allowing enough time for college athletes to study and play without either having to take a backseat. Indeed, international windows and training camps are budgeted for by U.S. colleges, which allows players like Benneckenstein and Frick to travel home when duty calls.

The next step

With their maiden FIFA ranking secured on Aug. 16, 187th out of 194 (three spots above Andorra), Liechtenstein's women's team are looking ahead. But once a national team takes the plunge, there is no turning back. In agreeing to play in the 2025-26 UEFA Nations League campaign, the team would have to confirm participation in the subsequent qualifiers/Nations League seasons.

"The worst scenario for us would be if we start the qualification, but end up with not enough players," Quaderer says. "Then we couldn't play the next qualification."

Once Liechtenstein head coach Krysl has spoken to all her players -- Quaderer estimates that a total of 40 would be needed due to injuries, as well as school or work commitments -- the board will review if Liechtenstein can take its next step.

For the players given a chance to represent their national team, it's a clear source of pride. But, as Göppel is aware, it's a sizable step up for the small country.

"You always have to be reasonable and evaluate if it makes sense because you can also see it with our men's team ... you will never really have a chance against big nations," she says. "But I think the Nations League is always a good opportunity to show what you can do, even smaller countries -- even if you lose 2-0 or something, sometimes that's a win for a smaller country."

When talking to ESPN, Krysl explained her coaching philosophy involved letting the players think for themselves, wanting them to learn and grow as footballers.

"I give them a mirror. It's important that the players can say if they should go left, or right; to know what to do in different situations rather than being told. So, I give them a way to learn, to understand."

Ahead of the two games with Namibia, the talk from everyone involved with the team -- from players, to coach, to the head of the federation -- was about the need to be realistic, to understand the limitations of the team and accept that they are still taking the early steps on their journey.

The football on show, even though slightly crude, was reminiscent of countless mid-table Women's Super League games last season: lacking shape in the first half, with a lone striker who struggles to get into the game, and a difficult time in balancing defence and attack.

But there is clear hope for the team too. The strategy put in place almost a decade ago has been followed -- and, so far, the plant has been carefully cared for. There is the hope the team will soon be playing in the Nations League, if not next year than in the next few years, once the LFV feels able to commit. Then a principal sponsor for the women's team will be required to keep the investment steady and allow the federation to keep grassroots funding while the sponsor takes on the expenditure of the travel that comes with a Nations League campaign.

The players, under Krysl's stewardship, are improving too. The coach is working as closely with the handful of clubs in Liechtenstein as possible and, even though trainings remain limited to three times a week, the national team is on a gentle uphill curve. The promise of more competitive games in the near future will only benefit the team in the long run.

For the first time in their history, the Liechtenstein women's national team are officially a FIFA-ranked nation. Only time will tell how far they can go.