Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
Happy Labour Day! And congratulations to Bern’s Young Boys, who yesterday became Swiss football champions for the fifth time in six years. Horns were soon tooting in the Swiss capital, but what do you do if you’re a passionate fan and your team is 10,000km away?
In the news: Military biscuits, energy-efficient public transport and Barack Obama.
- A family-run confectionary company that supplies the Swiss army with biscuits has signed a deal to use the Swiss Military label in exchange for royalties. Kambly will pay an unspecified sum to the federal coffers after signing the agreement with the Swiss defence procurement body, armasuisse.
- The Swiss public transport sector aims to improve energy efficiency by 30% by 2040 as it bids to meet the government’s CO2 neutral goal. It also wants the country’s entire public transport network to be powered from renewable sources by 2040.
- Former United States president Barack Obama shared insights into the government machinery and thoughts on the role his country plays on the world stage at an event in Zurich on Saturday night. During his first appearance in Switzerland, Obama revealed that what had stood out for him during his eight years as president was the need for persistence to make change happen.
Daniel Leibundgut has been a fan of Young Boys (YB) for ever, supporting the Bernese team through lean periods, relegations and near bankruptcies. He then moved to Mexico – and his team started winning!
Leibundgut, 44, has lived in Mexicali in the far north of his wife’s home country for nine years. But being almost 10,000km from Bern, with a nine-hour time difference, doesn’t prevent him from cheering on practically every YB game – even if that means a 30-hour journey, he told today’s edition of the Berner ZeitungExternal link.
The evening games are the most convenient, he says. It gets trickier when the whistle blows in Switzerland on a Sunday afternoon and it’s early morning in Mexico. Even then, he usually sits in front of the computer and watches the action via livestream. “For YB I’ve pulled countless all-nighters,” he says proudly, although he laments that the internet is “anything but top-notch here”.
Leibundgut grew up in Kiesen, canton Bern. He met his Mexican wife Pamela during a year abroad in Italy and they lived in Switzerland for several years, but partly because of her family business, a Mexican meat producer, they decided to emigrate to Mexico in 2014. Leibundgut has a management position in the business, which allows him to sometimes adjust his agenda to the YB game schedule. However, this isn’t always possible, for example when he has to drive to cattle ranches. “Then I listen to the games in the car on Radio Gelb-Schwarz.” Driving through the Mexican desert listening to the YB commentators in their broad Bernese German is pretty surreal, he admits. “But it’s also always a bit like home.”
Professionally and personally, emigrating to Mexico seems to have been a good move for Leibundgut. However, his timing was terrible. As soon as he left, YB – whose previous league title was in 1986, and before that in 1960 – couldn’t stop winning. They have now won five of the past six championships (most recently yesterday, pictured), but Leibundgut has only witnessed this from the other side of the world. “That’s tough,” he says.
His two sons, Diego (8) and Santiago (5), are also fans, but they take success for granted. “They have no idea what golden times they are experiencing right now,” says their father.
Sometimes, however, Leibundgut can’t resist the real stadium experience of Wankdorf, Youngs Boys’ home turf. When YB were drawn against Juventus in the Champions League in 2018, it was clear to the long-time Juve fan that he couldn’t miss the duel between his two favourite clubs. “For those 90 minutes I notched up over 30 hours of air travel,” he says. Due to delays, the trip ended up costing Leibundgut CHF7,000 ($7,850) – and severe jet lag. “I don’t know if I’d do it again,” he admits.
That said, once a year the Leibundguts spend several weeks on holiday in Bern, with Wankdorf as a fixed point in the programme. In addition to the obligatory games in the stadium, the family even attends training sessions. His wife has got used to the fact that the club is very important to him and sometimes even determines his moods, he says. “That’s why she’s been rooting for YB for years.”
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