FC Zürich Frauen is a women's association football club from Zürich, Switzerland. Its first team plays since the founding of the Swiss national league in 1970 in the first division. It is the most successful women's football club in the country, with a total of 24 league titles and 15 Cup titles.
History
FC Zürich Frauen was founded on 24 April 1970 as a section of SV Seebach, a football club founded 1916 from the Zurich city quarter of Seebach. 1980 the team won its first championship, one year later the team won the double. Until 2005 it totalled 12 Championships and 7 Cup wins.
That year the women's team of SV Seebach Zürich was spun off from the original club and rebranded under the name FFC Zürich Seebach. Between 2005 und 2008 the 13th championship followed and the 8th win of the Swiss Cup.
In summer 2008, the team was combined with FC Zürich. The name FFC Zürich Seebach was changed into FC Zürich Frauen. The first Swiss women's football team had been founded on 21 February 1968 under the helm of FC Zürich as DFC Zürich, but later discontinued. In summer 2010, FC Zürich Frauen moved its home for league games and practice from Seebach to the Heerenschürli sport park in the city quarter of Hirzenbach where youth teams of FC Zürich were already based. In 2021, the club opened there a new "Home of FC Zürich" to bring the men's, women's and youth teams under one roof. [1]
FC Zürich Frauen is Swiss record champion before the women's team of BSC YB Frauen (including titles of FFC Bern and DFC Bern). After 10 years without the championship title the team won it in 2008 and was able to defend it in 2009 and 2010.[2][3]
After winning the double on the national stage in 2022 with wins in the Swiss Cup final against local rival Grasshopper Club Zürich (4-1) in front of a record crowd for a national women's football game of 7'916 people at the Letzigrund and a win against Servette FCCF in the penalty shoot-out in the Playoff-Final of the Women's Super League, the team of coach Inka Grings could qualify for the only recently introduced group stage of the UEFA Women's Champions League for the very first time. Despite some good efforts and an outstanding goal from Seraina Piubel at the London's Emirates Stadium against Arsenal, the team lost all of their 6 games against three opponents that are considered heavy-weights in European football.
In January 2023 Inka Grings was appointed as new national coach of the Swiss women's national team and FC Zürich presented Jacqueline Dünker as their manager. After a 0-3 away defeat in the Cup semi-final against main rival Servette in March, the team could once again bounce back and won all remaining games of the season including the final of the Swiss Women's Super League 2022-23. Just like the year before, Zürich qualified as second-ranked team for the playoffs, but then beat the slightly favored Servette FCCF in the final for the second year in a row.
Stadium
The Heerenschürli sport park serves as home ground for most of the national league and cup games women's team of FC Zürich. The international games were played first at stadium Schützenwiese in Winterthur but since 2012 these games are hosted at the Letzigrund stadium in Zürich.
On the 13th of November 2013, 7,304 fans watched the round of 16 second leg game against FC Barcelona, which was a record attendance for Swiss women's football for many years.[4]Servette FC Chênois Féminin broke the record in 2021, when they had 12,782 people at their home game against Chelsea F.C. Women in the newly introduced group stage of the UEFA Women's Champions League.
However, when FC Zürich Frauen also qualified for the group stage a year later in 2022, the club's home stadium Letzigrund wasn't available due to scheduling issues. The three matches against Juventus, Lyon and Arsenal then were played at the Wefox Arena Schaffhausen, about 40km away from Zürich. The stadium's capacity of 8,000 then prevented another record attendance.[5]