“The whole of Swiss football can be proud, not just those wearing blue and red shirts.” -Photo by AFP

BASEL: Two former Swiss internationals, three of the country's brightest hopefuls and a mix of foreigners hoping to one day play in a more glamourous league combined to dump Manchester United out of the Champions League at the group stage.

The dominant force in a country where domestic football struggles to be taken seriously, 14-times Swiss champions Basel are something of a stepping stone for players and coaches.

The squad consists of young local players who have yet to be exported, older players who have returned home to play out their careers and foreigners who hope to use Switzerland as a springboard to a bigger league.

Striking partners Marco Streller and Alexander Frei, who scored the goals in Wednesday's 2-1 win over last year's finalists, both called time on their international careers earlier this year.

Former Borussia Dortmund striker Frei, Switzerland's record scorer with 42 goals, quit the national team in anger after being jeered by the fans at the same St Jakob-Park stadium where Basel won on Wednesday.

Streller, 30, who played for VfB Stuttgart and Cologne in the Bundesliga, also felt that playing for his country was doing him more harm than good.

The move appears to have paid off with both flourishing for their club and Frei scoring five goals in the Champions League campaign.

In midfield, Basel were inspired by three young players -- Fabian Frei, Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka -- who helped Switzerland reach the final of this year's European under-21 championship.

The trio are the fruit of Switzerland's forward-thinking youth policy, developed in the last 10 years and which has been especially successful in exploiting the potential of young players from immigrant families.

This also saw Switzerland win the under-17 world championship in 2009.

“The level of the young players is world class, and we have shown that Swiss football will play a big role in the future,” said Frei, who switches effortlessly between Swiss dialect, German and French when giving interviews.

“We have shown that Swiss football can play a big role in the future.”

PROUD

Players in the final category would include Argentine central defender David Abraham, who began his career with Independiente and then played for Spainish lower league side Gimnastic before his moved to Basel, and Cameroon's Jacques Zoua.

Ghana defender Samuel Inkoom made no secret during his spell with Basel that his goal was a big European club although his destination turned out to be Ukraine's Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, a move he recently admitted he regretted.

Meanwhile, former Bayern Munich midfielder Thorsten Fink, now in charge of Bundesliga side Hamburg SV, also built his coaching reputation at Basel.

Having struggled to establish himself in his native Germany, where he had a season with lower division Ingolstadt, he boosted his coaching credentials by winning two successive Swiss titles with Basel.

He has now been replaced by his former assistant and compatriot Heiko Vogel, who had not previously coached a top-level side in his own right.

Basel's win was a timely boost for Swiss domestic football which struggles with low attendances.

The sport has also seen its image tarnished hooliganism, Sion's court battle with European soccer's governing body UEFA and the tumultuous reign of Russian businessman Bulat Chagaev at Neuchatel Xamax, where four coaches were fired in his first five months as president.

“The whole of Swiss football can be proud, not just those wearing blue and red shirts,” said Frei.