Fabienne Humm shot the Swiss footballers to the 2023 World Cup on Tuesday. She is an unconventional Swiss football heroine.
What a lucky hand! The national coach Nils Nielsen was persistent and persuaded Fabienne Humm to resign from the national team – on Tuesday they were able to celebrate the World Cup qualification in the Letzigrund after Humm’s winning goal.
The women’s national team celebrated the World Cup qualification, which was achieved in extremis, in the VIP area of the Letzigrund on Wednesday night until 1 a.m. When part of the team moved to the city to continue the triumph, the match winner said goodbye home: Fabienne Humm, who scored the redeeming 2-1 winner in the 121st minute in the play-off against Wales don’t allow yourself a lavish night of partying.
Humm, 35, is the captain of FC Zurich and an amateur footballer by conviction. She works full-time as a logistics clerk. And had to be in the office at 8 a.m. on Wednesday. There was no way to take short-term time off: Humm’s time balance currently shows a deficit of 219 working hours, accumulated by a grueling year of football.
There’s the national team, and there’s FCZ with games in the European Cup – the Champions League adventure begins against Juventus Turin on Wednesday. When the Swiss women contested the European Championships in England in the summer, Humm sometimes sat in the hotel room and worked through everyday tasks.
She was a goalkeeper until she was 17
Fabienne Humm would never complain about it, she wanted it that way. In 2015, for example, she could have turned professional after scoring a hat-trick in five minutes in a 10-1 win against Ecuador at the World Cup in Canada and the tabloids then headlined: “boom-boom-humm”. But she says: “I never looked for it. I don’t know if my passion for football would be the same if it were my job. Work and football are two different worlds. I like both. And I have everything I need at FCZ to call up my full potential.”
Wouldn’t she wish she were ten years younger? Now that things are moving in women’s football and new opportunities are opening up. “No,” says Humm, “I’m very happy with how everything went and where I’m at today.”
Humm has achieved a lot in football. She was Swiss champion nine times with FC Zurich, was top scorer four times and took part in finals. And that despite the fact that she mainly played as a goalkeeper in FC Windisch until she was 17. Former National League footballer Dorjee Tsawa, as a coach at FC Zurich, made her the dreaded center forward. One of her sources of inspiration is her former FCZ teammate and current coach Inka Grings.
The German was once a world-class attacker, Humm says: “I learned a lot from her and I still do, especially when it comes to running paths.” With their ambition and doggedness on the pitch, Humm and Grings are not dissimilar in character either.
Nils Nielsen brought Fabienne Humm back to the national team – and made concessions
Humm’s goal on Tuesday at Letzigrund was perhaps the most important of her career. She had already retired from the national team in 2017. When the 2019 coaching staff around Nils Nielsen and Marisa Wunderlin tried to persuade her to return, she initially refused. «My decision was made. But they were pretty persistent. And told me that my profile is still missing from the team. I was pretty skeptical, after all I hadn’t played internationally for two years. But then I’m going to a moving together. And met right there. Since then I’ve been back, »says Humm.
How Fabienne Humm masters her “double life”.
However, there are limitations: it is hardly ever taken into account for test international matches. It is the association’s concession to this deserving player who lacks the time to play games without increased importance. She says: “We always weigh it up on a case-by-case basis. I am very grateful to my fellow players that it is accepted in this way.”
It’s not clear whether the successor to outgoing coach Nielsen will still have a use for Humm. Even if after the Wales game it would be strange not to take the player to the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand who made the trip possible in the first place.
Humm says: “I’m 35 now and I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep playing. My contract with FCZ runs until 2023. As long as I score a goal every now and then and they want me there, I’m available. But I can also imagine that my time will come to an end at some point, in the club and in the national team.”
When it came to the national team, five years ago she thought her time was up. On Tuesday, Humm provided impressive evidence to the contrary.