André Muff (born 28 January 1981) is a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as

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and then as

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

He has also appeared in the squad four times for the

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but played only twice. On 18 June 2009 he retired from professional football due to his reoccurring injuries. He then returned home and joined his former youth club SC Emmen as coach.

Career

Early years

Muff played his youth football with local amateur club SC Emmen. Aged just 15 years old he played as midfielder in their first team in the 2. Liga, then the fourth tier of

Swiss football league system The Swiss football league system, is a series of interconnected leagues for association football clubs in Switzerland, with seven teams from Liechtenstein, and one each from exclaves of Germany and Italy, also competing. The system has a hierarchi ...

. The midfielder was scouted by Grasshopper Club and joined their youth program in 1997, playing for their U-21 team. During this time, he was trained to play centre forward. For the 1999–2000 season he advanced to their first team under head coach

Roy Hodgson Roy Hodgson (born 9 August 1947) is an English former football manager and player. He has managed 22 different teams in eight countries, beginning in Sweden with Halmstad in the 1976 season. He later guided the Switzerland national team to t ...

. Muff played his team debut on 26 August 1999 in the

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match away against Irish team

Bray Wanderers Bray Wanderers Football Club are an Irish association football club playing in the League of Ireland First Division. The club in its present form was founded in 1942 in Bray, and was known until 2010 as ''Bray Wanderers A.F.C.'' It was elect ...

. He was substituted in the 63rd minute and two minutes later he scored the team's fourth goal as they won 4–0. In the domestic league GC ended the season in fourth position, Muff had 7 league appearances scoring four goals.

Basel

On 21 March 2000 it was announced that Muff was moving to

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Basel, in the Basel-Stadt, Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been List of Swiss footba ...

on a four-year contract. He joined Basel's first team for their 2000–01 season under head coach

Christian Gross Christian Jürgen Gross (born 14 August 1954) is a Swiss football manager and former player. He played as a sweeper and central midfielder. Gross was manager of Basel from 1999 to 2009, winning four Swiss Super Leagues and four Swiss Cups. As ...

. Because Gross had other good strikers such as

Jean-Michel Tchouga Jean-Michel Tchouga (born December 20, 1978) is a former footballer from Bafoussam in Cameroon. He played in the position as striker. Career Early years Tchouga played his youth football with local club KSA Yaoundé. He was scouted by Swiss team ...

Edmond N'Tiamoah Edmond N'Tiamoah (born 1 February 1981) is a Ghanaian former footballer who played as striker. He is now the logistics manager for the confectionery firm Bachmann in Switzerland. Career Early years Born in Swedru Ghana N'Tiamoah moved to France ...

Hervé Tum Hervé Tum (born 15 February 1979) is a Cameroonian former professional footballer who played as forward. Club career Tum was born in Yaoundé. He moved from Cameroon to Pacy-sur-Eure in North-western France during the 1990's. He joined the y ...

and

George Koumantarakis Georgios "George" Koumantarakis (born 27 March 1974) is a South African former soccer player of Greek descent. He was born in Athens, Greece but grew up in Durban, South Africa. He studied to be a lawyer and has BCom,LLB degrees from the unive ...

, he used Muff as a winger. After playing in five test games Muff played his domestic league debut for the club in the away game on 19 July 2000 as Basel were defeated 2–0 by Xamax. He scored his first goal for his new club on 10 August during the away game in the qualifying round of the

2000–01 UEFA Cup The 2000–01 UEFA Cup was the 30th edition of the UEFA Cup competition. Liverpool won the final with a golden goal in extra-time against Alavés for their third title in the competition. It completed a cup treble for the club, as they also won ...

as Basel won 5–1 against Folgore from San Marino Basel started somewhat irregularly into the season, a number of high scoring games, three victories, three defeats. They then gathered themselves and climbed to the top of the table. However, four defeats in the last five games, through them back to fifth position, at the end of the qualifying stage. Basel were able to play their home games of the championship group in their new stadium, the

St. Jakob-Park St. Jakob-Park () is a Swiss sports stadium in Basel. It is the largest football venue in Switzerland and home to FC Basel. "Joggeli", as the venue is nicknamed by the locals, was originally built with a capacity of 33,433 seats. The capacity w ...

which opened on 15 March 2001, and it was sold out with 33,433 spectators on three occasions. Muff had 13 appearances in the team's 22 league matches of the qualification round, scoring three goals. He played in four of the six

games, scoring three times. However, in the second half of the season he played only two league games and once in the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

. In the second half of the season, the team played eight draws in their 14 matches and so ended the season in fourth position. Muff started the 2001–02 season with FCB. He played one league match and the two

UIC UIC may refer to: Computing * Uranium Information Centre, a defunct website sponsored by uranium mining companies * User identification code, the user number of the Files-11 file system in the RSX-11 operating system Education * University of Ill ...

matches against

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, scoring both goals in the second leg as Basel won 2–0. Muff was then aggressively loaned out to

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

for the first half of the season and to

Luzern Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...

for the second half. He was again loaned to Luzern for the entire 2002–03 season and under head coach Bidu Zaugg he was a regular starter. Muff had 30 league appearances, scoring 16 goals, but despite these good performance figures he could not save the team from relegation at the end of the campaign. For the 2003–04 league season Basel loaned Muff to

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. Under head coach

Lucien Favre Lucien Favre (; born 2 November 1957) is a Swiss professional Association football, football manager and former player who most recently managed club OGC Nice, Nice. Favre was a playmaker for various Swiss and French clubs, the longest for Serve ...

he played his debut with the team on 16 July 2003 as FCZ lost 2–1 against FCB. Soon after this Muff suffered an injury had had to undergo groin surgery. The recovery was quick, but in a warmup match with the reserves Muff for a second bookable offence was dismissed and suspended for one match. Therefore, he had to wait another week until his return to playing. By the end of the season, Muff had played a total of 27 games for FCZ scoring a total of eight goals. 17 of these games were in the

Swiss Super League The Super League (also known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a professional association football league in Switzerland and the highest level of the Swiss football league system. It has been played in its current fo ...

, two in the

and eight were friendly games. He scored all eight goals in the domestic league. Muff did not return to Basel, because his contract was not renewed. During his time with the club, he played a total of 41 games for Basel scoring a total of 10 goals. 16 of these games were in the

, one in the

, six in the UEFA competitions (

and

) and 18 were friendly games. He scored three goals in the domestic league, five in the European games and the other two were scored during the test games.

Grasshoppers

As the contract expired over summer of 2004, Grasshopper Club signed Muff for

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1 million, bringing him back to the club where his career had begun. Muff joined the Grasshoppers first team under head coach

Alain Geiger Alain Geiger (born 5 November 1960) is a Swiss football manager and a former player. He was last manager at Servette FC, leading them to a Champions League qualifier spot and 2nd in the championship. He played mainly as a centre-back despite bei ...

and in his first game, in the 2004–05 league season on 17 July 2004, he scored his first goal as GC played a 1–1 draw in the derby against his former club FCZ. Muff immediately became regular starter and scored six goals in 21 league appearances. The team ended the season in third position and thus qualified for the next seasons UEFA Cup However, during the 2005–06 season, Muff suffered re-occurring injuries and only had six appearances. Due to his slow recovery, in the following season he didn't play any games for GC and during the winter break he moved on.

Concordia

Muff signed for

Concordia Basel FC Concordia Basel is a Swiss football club based in Basel. The club was founded in 1907. They play in the 2. Liga Interregional (fifth level), and their home stadium was Rankhof Stadium until the 2008–09 season. Concordia is ranking as the ...

, who at that time played in the second level, in the 2006–07 Challenge League and he played as winger alongside

Raúl Bobadilla Raúl Marcelo Bobadilla (born 18 June 1987) is a professional footballer who plays as a striker for Swiss club Aarau. Born in Argentina, he plays for the Paraguay national team. Career Early career Bobadilla originally started out at River Pl ...

and Alessandro Iandoli. Muff played for Concordia for two and a half seasons, becoming regular starter and goal scorer when he was fit. However, again he was repeatedly thrown back by injuries. On 18 June 2009 he announced that he was retiring from his professional playing career. He then returned home and joined his former youth club SC Emmen, who at that time played in the fifth tier of Swiss football, first two years as player-coach and from 2011 to 2017 as their head coach.

National team

Muff joined the Swiss U-21 team in summer 2000 playing his first game for them on 15 August. While on loan to FC Lucerne, Muff played on the host

Switzerland national under-21 football team The Switzerland national under-21 football team is the national under-21 football team of Switzerland and is controlled by the Swiss Football Association. The team competes in the UEFA European Under-21 Championship, which is held every two ...

in the 2002

UEFA European Under-21 Championship The UEFA European Under-21 Championship, the UEFA Under-21 Championship or simply the Euro Under-21, is a biennial football competition contested by the European men's under-21 national teams of the UEFA member associations. Since 1992, the comp ...

wearing the number 21 shirt. In total, including friendly matches, he played 27 games scoring nine times. Muff made 2 appearances on the national team from 2000 to 2005: a friendly match against

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

in 2000, as an unused sub in a

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea/Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

qualification match against

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

, a friendly match against

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

in 2004 and as an unused sub in a

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to FIFA World Cup hosts ...

qualification match against

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

.Switzerland – International Matches – Details
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References

Sources

* Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muff, Andre 1981 births Men's association football forwards Living people Swiss men's footballers Switzerland men's international footballers Switzerland men's under-21 international footballers FC Zürich players FC Luzern players FC Basel players FC Concordia Basel players FC Lugano players Grasshopper Club Zurich players Swiss Super League players Swiss Challenge League players 21st-century Swiss sportsmen