Grasshopper ready to leap into action in London
While Grasshopper Club Zurich are making their EHL debut, they have inside knowledge in their setup of the competition dating right the way back to November 2007.
Lars Bamberg has the honour of being the first Swiss player to score in the EHL, netting for Luzerner SC against Loughborough Students in the debut Euro Hockey League season’s ROUND1.
Seventeen years on, he is part of Grasshopper’s wider panel who are riding the crest of a wave as they ended Rotweiss Wettingen’s 10-year reign as Swiss national champions to qualify for the EHL for the first time.
It is the culmination of several years’ work. The men’s team took a major step forward in 2019 when they professionalised under head coach Facqundo Quiroga, before fellow Argentinean Franco Romani took the reins in 2022.
It was their first outdoor title in 28 years, coming 100 years after the men’s section was founded in 1924.
And Bamberg says it is a new world in terms of approach for the club: “This professionalism we’ve got now in the past four years in Zurich, I’ve never seen that before.
“We have up to 25 players train together, pushing each other. Abroad, that’s probably normal but, in Switzerland, this is not how it always was!”
It has aided their flying start to the league season, winning four out of four games and building a five-point lead at this early stage of the season.
Another big boost has been the arrival in Zurich of Olympian Nahuel Salis in 2023 while the city’s attractive work-study-life balance lends itself well to an influx of players.
“Around half the club is from Switzerland with seven or eight of them having played for the national team at some stage. Then we’ve got a good university here so there are like five Germans and three Dutch either working or studying here.
“Then, Craig Turner, one of our recent joiners from New Zealand is here because his fiancé is doing her PhD here.”
As for his own part in EHL history, it came during his second season in Lucerne having grown up in Basel.
That debut game ultimately ended in heartbreak with Loughborough scoring in the last 10 minutes of a 2-1 win despite being reduced to nine players; Bamberg’s opportunistic equalising goal had them in with a shout.
He reflects on it as being a massive step up to anything he had experienced to date.
“I was not ready for it! About 10 years later, I was like, man, why didn’t I just train more, do more for it because it was such a nice opportunity, being on this stage at the age of 19!
“At the time I didn’t realise what it meant for us. It was four seconds from going into the next round. It was a big bummer in the end!”
The competitive nature of the squad means he is touch and go to be part of the panel in London while he adds there is plenty of international experience across the panel to lean on.
“I wouldn’t say I’m the experienced guy,” he laughs. “There’s Salis who played in the Olympics. I cannot tell him what I have experienced. There’s another one who played 15 years on the national team.
“A lot of the guys like me have been to seven or right European club events, like a level below or indoors, and Swiss players can pick up that kind of European or international appearances.
“But of course, the younger guys sometimes, you need to tell them, hey, play easy, stay calm, just do your thing, don’t overthink it. Just try, just give it a bang if you’re in the circle!”
Their opponent is Lille from France, a side who defeated Rotweiss Wettingen in 2022 in Hamburg in a shoot-out after a very even game.
Bamberg is well aware of the challenge they will pose with the likes of Olympians Viktor Lockwood, Brieuc Delemazure and Matéo Desgouillons.
“The question will be if their other 15 players are at this level as well. So that’s why I think we do have a big chance; Rotweiss are on our level and they got that draw two years ago so I think it’s a real 50-50 game.”
** Find out more about the Grasshopper Club Zurich team here
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