Mathias Walther (born 11 April 1972) is a retired

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri *Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internati ...

football midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

and later manager.Weltfussball
/ref> He was sporting director of

Grasshopper Club Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshopp ...

until 2019 and is now businessman and entrepreneur. Walther came through the youth system of

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss football club based in Basel, in the Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been Swiss national champions 20 times, Swiss Cup winners 13 times, a ...

and advanced to their U-21 team 1990. He was called up to their first team many times in their 1990–91 season under head coach Ernst August Künnecke. He played his domestic league debut for the club in the home game in the

St. Jakob Stadium The St. Jakob Stadium was a football stadium in Basel, Switzerland and the former home of Swiss club FC Basel. It was built in view of the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and as well as serving as a club stadium, it hosted several important matches, incl ...

on 22 December 1990 as Basel won 6–2 against

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a town with historic roots, a municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimat ...

. In that season he played just three league matches. In the following season he joined the first team squad and had ten appearances. At the age of 21 Walther had to end his active career because of performance asthma. During his three seasons with the team Walther played a total of 22 games for Basel scoring one goal. 13 of these games were in the Nationalliga A, 2 in the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference ...

and 7 were friendly games. He scored his goal during his last test game for the club. Walther completed a degree in business administration. He joined

in 1998 as academy manager and coach of their U-14 team. In 2004 he became Director of Football and head coach by

FC Winterthur FC Winterthur is a Swiss football club based in Winterthur, Canton of Zürich. They play in the Swiss Super League, the first tier of Swiss football, and appeared regularly in the Nationalliga A during the 20th century. Their home is the Sta ...

in the second tier of Swiss football and held these positions until 2009. Walter rejoined GC in 2010 and became coach of their U-21 team for the 2010–11 season. Walter worked for the club as sport director and academy manager. On 10 April 2018 he sacked head coach

Murat Yakin Murat Yakin ( tr, Yakın; born 15 September 1974) is a Swiss football coach and former player. He is the manager of the Switzerland national football team. Playing career Yakin spent the longest spell of his career playing for his hometown cl ...

and took over as caretaker manager himself for a short period. Since 2013 he has also been a member of the board of directors of the sports marketing company Codama AG.

References

1972 births Living people Swiss men's footballers FC Basel players Men's association football midfielders Swiss Super League players Swiss football managers FC Winterthur managers Grasshopper Club Zurich managers Footballers from Basel-Stadt {{Switzerland-footy-midfielder-stub