Women’s national football team embarks on Euro adventure with support from Magglingen
Magglingen, 05.07.2022 - Switzerland’s women’s football team has qualified for the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 in England on 6–31 July 2022. The Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen (SFISM) assisted the team with its preparations by conducting performance diagnostics.
Peak physical fitness is essential if the women’s team is to have a chance against Europe’s top 15 teams at the Euro tournament. That's why the Swiss women's team turned to the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen SFISM – part of the Federal Office of Sport (FOSPO) – for support with their preparations.
Positive development
In April, the sports physiology team around Markus Tschopp, a medical doctor, and Hélène Maystre, the responsible officer for women’s football, tested the Swiss wom-en’s "explosivity" – a central athletic element in top-class football – by means of vari-ous jump tests on force plates. A second test window in mid-June was used to as-sess the women’s development based on the individual training recommendations derived from the initial tests. This showed an improvement between the first and sec-ond set of tests: the Swiss team's speed-strength capacity in the run-up to the tour-nament has increased.
Mobile, fast, low-strain
To integrate the tests as far as possible into the team’s normal training environment, five SFISM scientists travelled to the training camp at Pfäffikon in Canton Schwyz. This meant that 24 players could be tested on site within the space of one hour. The tests were adapted from those carried out for the men’s national "A" team, and en-compass an injury prevention as well as the performance component.
Ever more professional
SFISM has been cooperating with the Swiss Football Association (SFV-ASF) for many years. The importance of performance diagnostics in women’s football has in-creased enormously in recent years. The professionalisation of the sport is advanc-ing rapidly, and this manifests itself most notably in the women’s England line-up. That is confirmed by Lia Wälti, who will be captaining the team in England: "We do tests like that regularly in the club too. The physical reference values are extremely useful for us."
The Women's European football championships are being held in England from 6 to 31 July 2022. In the group phase, Switzerland will meet Portugal, Sweden and the Netherlands.
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Communication Federal Office of Sports
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CH-2532 Magglingen
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Federal Office of Sports
http://www.baspo.admin.ch/
General Secretariat DDPS
https://www.vbs.admin.ch/
