Peter Marti (12 July 1952 – 23 March 2023) was a Swiss

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 a forward during the 1970s and 1980s.

Career

Early years

Born in Langenthal, in addition to playing his youth soccer with the local amateur football club, Marti also played ice hockey with SC Langenthal and he made it to youth internationals in both sports. When he finally had to decide between the two, it is said that he had to flip a coin. After making his decision, Marti moved to the youth department of the Young Boys in 1969, advancing to their first team a year later. Across all competitions, league,

Cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...

and UIC, he had 57 appearances scoring seven goals.

Zürich

During the 1972–73 season he signed for

FC Zürich Fussballclub Zürich, commonly abbreviated to FC Zürich or simply FCZ, is a professional football club based in Zurich, Switzerland. The club was founded in 1896 and has won the Swiss Super League thirteen times and the Swiss Cup ten times. ...

, this as the up-and-coming FCZ under German trainer Timo Konietzka lured him with a multi-year contract. Marti played his domestic league debut for his new team in the home game in the

Letzigrund Letzigrund () is a stadium in Zurich, Switzerland, the home of the football (soccer), football clubs FC Zürich and Grasshopper Club Zürich, as well as the Sport of athletics, athletics club . The original stadium was constructed by members of FC ...

on 20 October 1972 as FCZ won 4–0 against

Grenchen Grenchen () is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Lebern (district), Lebern in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Solothurn (canton), Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located at the foot of the Jura mountains betwee ...

. In the 1972–73 Cupfinal Marti scored the first goal as Zürich beat Basel 2–0 after

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

. At the end of the season Marti had made 21 appearances, 15 in the league and six in the Cup. At the end of the 1973–74 season and again at the end of the 1974–75 season Marti won the championship with FCZ, where as his playing time in his third season with the team diminished markedly and, therefore, he moved on. During his time with the club, Marti had 61 appearances, 34 in the league, 15 in the domestic Cup and 12 at international level (

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

and UIC) scoring in total nine goals.

Basel

In the summer of 1975, Marti transferred 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 ...

under head coach

Helmut Benthaus Helmut Benthaus (born 5 June 1935) is a German former association football, football player and coach. He spent his best playing days at Westfalia Herne and his best coaching days at FC Basel. Early career Born in Herne, Germany, Herne, Benthau ...

. After playing in two test games Marti played his debut for the club in the UIC as Basel won 4–3 in the away game against

Stade de Reims Stade de Reims () is a French professional football club based in Reims. The club was formed in 1931 and plays in Ligue 2, the second tier of football in France. Reims plays home matches at the Stade Auguste Delaune. Reims is one of the mo ...

on 19 July. He scored his first goal for his new team in the away game in the League Cup. In fact he netted the team's third and fourth goal as they won 4–1 against St. Gallen. In the next round he scored the teams first and last goals, as FCB won 8–1 away against Young Fellows Zürich and in the quarter-final he scored a hat-trick, as they won 6–2 against

. In his first season with Basel they ended in the season in third position, but in the 1976–77 season they won the national championship after ending level in points with Servette, but winning the play-off. He stayed with the club for six years winning the league title again in the 1979–80 season. Basel won the championship in the last matchday of the season, away against Marti's former club

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 ...

and he scored one of the goals as Basel won 4–1.

Aarau

In the 1982–83 season Marti played for newly promoted

FC Aarau FC Aarau is a Swiss professional football club based in Aarau. Founded in 1902, the club competes in the Swiss Challenge League, the second tier of Swiss football after being relegated from the Swiss Super League. History FC Aarau was form ...

and they ended the league season in seventh position, well away from the relegation zone. With Aarau, in that season, Marti won the League Cup, winning the two legged final 1–0 on aggrigate against St. Gallen.

Basel

Marti then returned to play for Basel for the 1982–83 season, but at the end of the season he decided to move on definitively. Between the years from 1975 to 1981 and again 1982–83 he played a total of 286 games for Basel scoring a total of 88 goals. 46 of these games were in the domestic league, 15 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 ...

, 13 in the League Cup, 29 in the UEFA competitions (

European Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European association football, football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The competition's official name was originally the European Cup Winners' Cup; it was renam ...

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

, and Cup of the Alps) and 65 were friendly games. He scored 45 goals in the domestic league, three in the Swiss Cup, 11 in the League Cup, five in the European games and the other 24 were scored during the test games.

Aarau

In summer 1983 Marti signed for

under head coach

Zvezdan Čebinac Zvezdan Čebinac (Serbian Cyrillic: Звeздaн Чeбинaц; 8 December 1939 – 18 February 2012) was a Serbian football player and manager. A midfielder, he played for clubs in Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland and made 20 ...

. The following season, under new and up-coming head coach

Ottmar Hitzfeld Ottmar Hitzfeld (; born 12 January 1949) is a German former professional football player and a former manager. He accumulated a total of 18 major titles, mostly in his tenures with Grasshopper Club Zürich, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. ...

the team won the

for the first and only time in the club's history. Marti retired from his football career in 1985.

National team

The striker also made it into the Swiss national team. Aged just 19 he made his debut in a friendly against Turkey. In total, he completed six games in the dress of the national team.

Personal life

After his football career, the father of two adult children, ran a cleaning company from Pfeffingen with his life partner Beatrice Straumann. Marti died on 23 March 2023, at the age of 70. His heart had caused problems for the ex-footballer before, he suffered several heart attacks.

Honours

;Zürich *

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 ...

: 1973–74, 1974–75 *

: 1973 ;Basel *

: 1976–77, 1979–80 * Uhrencup: 1978, 1979, 1980 ;Aarau *

Swiss League Cup The Swiss League Cup was a football tournament which took place as a summer pre-season tournament in 1972 and 1973, and during the Swiss football season from 1974–75 to 1981–82. The tournament was a knockout competition contested by clubs fro ...

: 1981–82 *

: 1984–85

References

Sources

* Die ersten 125 Jahre. Publisher: Josef Zindel im Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel.
Portrait of Peter Marti on FCB site

Verein "Basler Fussballarchiv" Homepage

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marti, Peter 1952 births 2023 deaths Sportspeople from Langenthal Footballers from the canton of Bern Swiss men's footballers Men's association football forwards Switzerland men's international footballers Swiss Super League players BSC Young Boys players FC Zürich players FC Basel players FC Aarau players 20th-century Swiss sportsmen