The 'Swiss Leicester' closing on their first title

ByAlex Brotherton

BBC Sport journalist

Cold-water swimming in an alpine lake might not be something you expect to see on the daily schedule of a football club president.

Andres Gerber swims in Lake Thun, rain or shine, in honour of his late brother who died from cancer in 2021. The past five years have not been straightforward for the former Switzerland defender, but not just on a personal level.

Since Gerber became president of Swiss side FC Thun in 2020, the club have gone from narrowly avoiding financial collapse to achieving promotion to the Swiss Super League.

Despite the vastly greater resources of FC Basel and BSC Young Boys, it is newly promoted Thun who sit 15 points clear at the top of the table with seven games remaining.

"It's a bit like when Leicester won the Premier League," Gerber, who spent six years of his playing career at Thun, told BBC Sport.

Based in a picturesque lakeside town of just 45,000 inhabitants and without a major trophy in their 128-year existence, Thun's likely title win will be one of the most remarkable in European football history.

Unless you are Swiss or have a particular interest in the country's football, it's unlikely you have heard of Thun or the town of the same name.

Since 1898 the club have twice won the second division title and twice finished runners-up in the Swiss Cup.

Many people in the region support 17-time Swiss champions and regular European participants Young Boys, who play 19 miles up the road in Bern.

Thun's previous greatest season came in 2004-05, when a second-placed finish secured a spot in the Champions League.

A late Dennis Bergkamp goal denied Thun an unlikely point against Arsenal at Highbury on their group-stage debut, but the Swiss minnows still finished third in their group - above Czech giants Sparta Prague.

Things went downhill thereafter. A cup final defeat in 2019 was followed by relegation in 2020. Investments from Chinese multi-club owner Chien Lee and board member Beat Fahrni saved the club from extinction on several occasions, most recently in early 2024.

Thun recovered from play-off final defeat in 2023-24 to win the Swiss Challenge League by 11 points last season and end a five-year spell in the second tier.

Many expected the likes of Basel, Young Boys, St Gallen and Lugano to contest a title race this year, but all have been wildly inconsistent. Certainly, nobody saw Thun's dominance coming.

Barring accidents, they will become only the second Swiss club - the first since Grasshopper Zurich in 1952 - to win the second division and the top flight in back-to-back seasons.

"It would be a completely unique and unbelievable achievement from a club that simply has no right to be tearing up the script in the way they have," Swiss football journalist Craig King told BBC Sport.

Thun are dominant in many facets of the game.

They are the Super League's top scorers and have conceded the fewest goals, while in February set a top-flight record of 10 consecutive wins, breaking the previous record of seven they set in 2004-05.

Former Thun and Switzerland striker Mauro Lustrinelli has created an attacking and and dynamic team that wins the ball high up the pitch through intense pressing.

Instead of starving opponents of the ball, the 50-year-old coach wants his side to play vertically and attack through quick transitions.

"If we can score with two passes, why do we have to make 10 or 20 passes?" Lustrinelli told BBC Sport.

"For me it is not the most important thing to have the ball in our half."

Despite averaging just 46.5% possession this season - less than eight other teams - Thun rank first for touches in the opposition penalty area.

But there is also a streetwise element to Thun.

"Their style of play isn't pretty but they are smart and control games in whichever way they can," King said.

"They win games that they are second-best in because of that cunning in the side that accentuates the positives of a squad that lacks the depth and overall skill of the more illustrious sides in the league."

Make no mistake: Thun have not been bankrolled to success.

According to Transfermarkt they sit mid-table in terms of transfer spending in the 12-team Super League this season, but their squad has the second-lowest market value at £13.8m - way below Young Boys at £61m and defending champions Basel at £51.5m.

Thun have largely stuck with a group of players after promotion who were already comfortable and thriving under Lustrinelli's system.

"People said we had to change the squad," Lustrinelli said. "But it was really important to give continuity to a group that did something special. This group had a good mentality and a winning mindset."

That group has certainly rewarded the faith showed in them.

After scoring 13 goals across three second-division campaigns with Thun, North Macedonian striker Elmin Rastoder already has 12 in the top flight this term.

Striker Christopher Ibayi has nine goals after netting just three last season, while academy graduate Franz-Ethan Meichtry has eight.

Add in the experience of Leonardo Bertone and Kastriot Imeri - both title winners with Young Boys - and the leadership of captain Marco Burki, and Thun have a perfect balance.

Lustrinelli says that bit extra comes from "relationships between the players, the team spirit, the desire to make something special together, to live with passion every day together".

"These things make the big difference, that you have a team on the pitch who can suffer together and stick together when things don't go well, to grow and develop together," he added.

Thun's story provides a timely reminder that at football's core are people, connection and emotion.

Lustrinelli knows this better than most. Months after scoring 20 goals in 30 league games during that historic 2004-05 campaign, he became a club legend by scoring twice as Thun defeated Sweden's Malmo in the Champions League play-offs to reach the group stage.

"When I came back to Thun, the possibility to live one more time something special was in my head and my heart," Lustrinelli said.

"My mission is to help this club, the players, to reach something special and historical. To go to the glory. But it's not just a mission, it's a joy."

If he and his players finish the job, it would sit alongside the underdog triumphs of Kaiserslautern in 1997-98, Leicester in 2015-16 and Sweden's Mjallby in 2025.

"History tells us sometimes crazy things happen in football," added Lustrinelli.

"Some value is not with money. For the future it's important that you can have something good without money.

"One of the most beautiful things we can do is show the world there are crazy moments, and for the kids in the stadium, so that they can hope to become footballers in the future and give emotions."

The traditional title contenders can't begrudge Thun their moment in the spotlight, either.

"That's why we love football, because it has its own rules, and stories like this go around the world. All of Switzerland is happy for FC Thun," said Young Boys and former Thun winger Christian Fassnacht.

It looks like football history is about to be written. But will the heroes on the pitch join their president in the lake?

"That's the smallest thing we would do," said captain Burki.

"I cannot speak for everyone, but I think they have no other choice."