FC Zürich FC Zürich is a Swiss football club founded on 1 March 1896 by a group of students. Among the club's co-founders and first captain was Joan Gamper, who grew up in Zurich before moving to Catalonia, where he founded FC Barcelona in 1899 — one of the most decorated clubs in the world. The team originally played in red, but since the 1960s has worn its distinctive white-and-blue kit, a reference to the colours of the city of Zurich, which earned the club its nickname Die Stadt (The City).
FC Zürich won its first Swiss championship in 1902, beating two Bern-based teams in a play-off, but the club's true golden era came in the 1960s and 1970s. It was during this period that the team twice — in 1964 and 1977 — reached the semi-finals of the European Cup, a unique achievement in the history of Swiss football, as no other club from the country has reached that stage of the competition more than once. During this period, the club also reached the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup (1974) and regularly triumphed in domestic competition.
In total, FC Zürich has won 13 Swiss championship titles and 10 Swiss Cups over its history. Particularly memorable was the conclusion of the 2005–06 league season, when the team, managed by coach Lucien Favre and bolstered by prolific Guinean striker Boubacar Sanogo Keïta, needed a win in the final matchday at the stronghold of defending champions FC Basel; Zürich scored the winning goal in stoppage time through Iulian Filipescu, securing the title in dramatic circumstances that sparked one of the worst riots in the history of Swiss football. The club's most recent, thirteenth title came in the 2021–22 season.
Since 1925, the club has played its home matches at the Letzigrund, which, following a thorough reconstruction for Euro 2008, it now shares with city rival Grasshopper Club Zürich. As one of only three Swiss clubs ever to have played in the UEFA Champions League in its current format (2009–10), FC Zürich remains one of the country's most important footballing institutions.
