Grasshoppers

Twenty-seven Swiss championships stand to Grasshopper's name, more than any other club in the country, and the run started early: the title in 1897–98 made GC the first club champion of Switzerland, and the league format brought a second the following season. The record built across decades rather than in one stretch — titles landed in the 1930s, through the war years of the 1940s, again in the 1980s and 1990s, with the last two coming in 2000–01 and 2002–03. The Swiss Cup tells a similar story: 19 wins, also a record, though after the 1994 final the cabinet stayed empty for a decade until the 2013 cup broke the drought.

An Englishman, Tom E. Griffith, founded the club on 1 September 1886, and the name came from the players themselves — their goal celebrations reminded onlookers of grasshoppers. GC also has a habit of going first: in 1893 it became the first Swiss side to play a match in Germany, and in May 2005 Neue Grasshopper Fussball AG became the first Swiss sports organisation to list on the stock exchange.

The academy has fed the national team for years. Yann Sommer came through it before moving on to Borussia Mönchengladbach and Inter, Roman Bürki followed a similar path to Dortmund, and Philippe Senderos left for Arsenal and Everton. Stéphane Chapuisat wore the shirt from 1999 to 2002 and helped bring the 2001 championship home, adding to a run that had already made him Swiss Footballer of the Year four times.

Ownership has moved fast and unsettled things. A Hong Kong company, Champion Union HK Holding, took 90 per cent of the club in April 2020; by January 2024 that majority had passed to LAFC, the American MLS side. Supporters pushed back against that arrangement, and in June 2026 the club was sold on to Bridge Football. In between, GC dropped out of the top flight in 2019 for the first time in 68 years. Home games are played at the Letzigrund, rebuilt and reopened in 2007, and it is there that the derby against FC Zürich is fought out.