Renato Steffen (born 3 November 1991) is a Swiss professional

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 plays as a

left winger In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. ...

for

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 ...

club

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 ...

and the Switzerland national team.

Club career

Youth football

Steffen played his youth football with local club FC Erlinsbach. He played three years in the

Aarau Aarau (, ) is a List of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital of the northern Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Aargau. The List of towns in Switzerland, town is also the capital of the d ...

U-14 and U-16 youth teams. He then transferred to SC Schöftland and spent four years with them.

Solothurn and Thun

Steffen played amateur football in the

1. Liga Classic 1. Liga Classic (1st League Classic in English) is the fourth tier of the Swiss football league system. At its creation in 1931, the fourth tier of Swiss football was called 3. Liga. The league is operated by a subdivision of the Swiss Football As ...

for

Solothurn Solothurn ( ; ; ; ; ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissenstein Jura mountains. The town is ...

. After one season he transferred to

Thun Thun () is a List of towns in Switzerland, town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the administrative district of Thun (administrative district), Thun in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Canton of Bern, Bern in Switzerland. ...

in July 2012 and made his professional debut on 2 September 2012 in the game against

Servette FC Servette FC is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Geneva, founded in March 1890 with rugby as its first sporting activity, and named after the Geneva district of the same name. The football section was created on ...

. He scored 4 goals in 19 games for Thun in the

2012–13 Swiss Super League The 2012–13 Swiss Super League, also known as the Raiffeisen Super League for sponsoring purposes, was the 116th season of top-tier football in Switzerland. It began on 14 July 2012 and ended on 2 June 2013. Basel successfully defended their ...

that season.

Young Boys

At the end of that season Steffen was sold for €500.000 to Young Boys. Here he signed a four-year deal in Bern.

Basel

During the winter break of the 2015–16 Super League, on 12 January,

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

announced that Steffen had signed a four-and-a-half-year contract with them. Steffen played his first team league debut for Basel on 7 February, coming in as a substitute in the 74th minute, in the home game in 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 ...

against

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 ...

. He scored his first goal for his new club in the same game, it was the final goal of the match in the 85 minute and Basel won the game 3–0. Under trainer Urs Fischer Steffen won the

championship with Basel at the end of their 2015–16 season. Again at the end of the 2016–17 Super League season Basel won the league title. For the club this was the eighth title in a row and their 20th championship title in total. They also won 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 ...

for the twelfth time that season, which meant they had won the double for the sixth time in the club's history. During the winter break of their 2017–18 season Steffan left the club and signed for

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg (), is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of Wolfsburg. I ...

. During his two years with the club Steffan played a total of 112 games for Basel scoring a total of 23 goals. 61 of these games were in the

, seven in the

, 16 in the UEFA competitions (Champions League and Europa League) and 28 were friendly games. He scored 15 goal in the domestic league, two in the cup, two in the European games and the other four were scored during the test games.

Wolfsburg

On 10 January 2018, Steffen signed a three-and-a-half-year deal with

. The transfer fee was reported as being €1.75 million. He scored the first Wolfsburg goal after the temporary cancellation of the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

because of the

COVID-19 pandemic in Germany The COVID-19 pandemic in Germany has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. On 27 January 2020, the first case in Germany was confirmed near Munich, Bavaria. By mid February, the arising cluster of cases had been fully contained ...

, against

FC Augsburg Fußball-Club Augsburg 1907 e. V., commonly known as FC Augsburg (), is a Football in Germany, German professional football club based in Augsburg, Bavaria. FC Augsburg play in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system. T ...

with a header from the edge of the box.

Lugano

On 30 August 2022, Steffen signed a three-year contract with

International career

Steffen made his first appearance for

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

on 9 October 2015, in a Euro 2016 qualifier against

San Marino San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino, is a landlocked country in Southern Europe, completely surrounded by Italy. Located on the northeastern slopes of the Apennine Mountains, it is the larger of two European microstates, microsta ...

. He was subbed on in the 78th minute of a 7–0 victory. In May 2019, he Steffen played in the

2019 UEFA Nations League Finals The 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals was the final tournament of the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League, 2018–19 edition of the UEFA Nations League, the inaugural season of the international Association football, football competition involving the me ...

, where his team finished fourth. He then started for Switzerland against

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

in a

2020–21 UEFA Nations League The 2020–21 UEFA Nations League was the second season of the UEFA Nations League, an international association football competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of UEFA. The competition was held from Septembe ...

match. Steffen was forced to sit out of

UEFA Euro 2020 The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the Anniversary#Latin-derived numerical names, quadrennial international men's association footb ...

, due to injury. Following the tournament, he returned to the national team and was frequently chosen in the starting lineup for 2022 World Cup qualifying matches. On 12 October 2021, Steffen scored his first international goal for Switzerland against

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. On 9 November 2022, he was announced as part of the final squad for the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the 22nd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

. At the tournament itself he only had a brief appearance in their group game against

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, coming on in the last fifteen minutes of the game. On 16 March 2023, he was included in Switzerland's squad for their initial matches of their upcoming UEFA Euro qualifying campaign. On 25 March 2023, he scored a hat-trick in Switzerland's 5–0 win over

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

, in

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; #Name, see below for other names) is the List of cities in Serbia, second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pannoni ...

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Switzerland's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Steffen goal.''

Honours

Basel *

: 2015–16, 2016–17 *

: 2016–17 Individual *

Goal of the Year: 2014–15 *

Team of the Year: 2014–15, 2017–18 *

top assists provider:

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

(shared)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Steffen, Renato 1991 births Footballers from Aarau Living people Swiss men's footballers Switzerland men's international footballers Men's association football wingers FC Solothurn players FC Thun players BSC Young Boys players FC Basel players VfL Wolfsburg players FC Lugano players Swiss Super League players Bundesliga players 2022 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 2024 players Swiss expatriate men's footballers Swiss expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Germany 21st-century Swiss sportsmen