Marco Rojas - The retirement of the Kiwi Messi

Not certain but would think Vaduz play in the Swiss League. Leichtenstein is really only Vaduz which is the capital and reasonably small. From memory it is a principality or something like that.

Fairly certain Liechtenstein has a few towns, it's a tiny principality but not Monaco or Vatican small. No idea how many football teams though, it's a very wealthy country.

Vaduz do play in the Swiss League and came 9th last year but there is a Leichenstein Cup which they almost always win.

Just googled it,\ and it's quite interesting they are the only uefa country without a domestic league, they have 7 teams all playing in the swiss league. Vaduz is the only club playing in the top tier (in fact the only club playing above level 3). The rift is quite obvious in the Leichenstein Cup, last year they won 5-0, the year before that 6-0. In fact since 98 they have only lost it twice.

Also the capacity of FC Vaduz stadium is just under 8k, the town of Vaduz itself only has a population of 5,100...

The entire country is about a quarter the land area of Upper Hutt

the only difference is that the people hiding their money in Upper Hutt wear patches instead of Prada

7, all of them playing in the swiss football system

I wonder how they get on with eligibility issues in their National team?

Maybe move to another thread, but you'd think it would be hard for them to field a competitive team if everyone was born in Leichtenstein.

Given that their highest ever rankings are 118 (FIFA) and 150 (ELO), they do seem to struggle a bit.

Maybe they cheat?

That's probably because they are always playing UEFA teams. If they were a Concacaf member then their rankings would be much better

Maybe they should join CONCACAF

Superceded

The lads covered this off in Kiwi's Overseas on the last pod.  You boys should have a listen

If you are interested in Liechtenstein football, you must read Charlie Connelly's "Stomping Grounds". A great read. Also, yes, they don't have a domestic competition, just the L-Cup.

Most of their teams play in the Swiss leagues, and Vaduz are doing all right, having risen from the 3rd division a few years ago.

In terms of nationality, Liechtenstein has one of the most restrictive naturalization processes in the world. It can take up to 30 years as a resident to acquire a Principality's passport and sometimes the local community are called on to vote on whether someone should be granted citizenship (community participation and integration are highly taken into consideration). Needless to say, acquiring L-citizenship requires giving up any other citizenship held previously.

So the majority of the players who represent Liechtenstein are born and bread in the country. The only exceptions would be a few Switzerland-born players who have family ties with the Principality (Liechtensteiners can travel to and live in Switzerland with great ease), and a couple of Italian (all pretty much born in the country) and Turkish players and those two nationality make up the majority of the foreign, non-german speaking population in Liechtenstein.

I love the wee country, and know quite a lot about it. You may have seen me play Twilight football at Te Whaea in a Liecthtenstein shirt at some stage.

EDIT: I should also add that the rise of L-football in recent years has been reflected in the national team's successes. For a country of just over 30,000 people, they do a whole lot more that other small countries in Europe, such as San Marino and Andorra. They aren't quite at the level of the Faroe Islands, but their team has gone from strength to strength. In the last couple of years only, they have managed draws against Montenegro and Moldova and wins over San Marino and Moldova. And a string of very respectable losses. 

In 2013 they drew with Latvia and Slovakia and lost 2-3 vs Croatia at home. A couple of years before they beat Lithuania 2-0 and they also drew 2-2- vs Portugal, though I can't remember what year that was.

game starts at 7.30pm NZ time - no word if Rojas starting yet.

They are not so picky with the laws if you want to open a business in letterbox.

Population 36K. Letterbox companies 72k

Picked up a goal this morning in a 2-all draw, so Thun go through on away goals

Been a great start to the season for Marco, good to see he's finally exorcising those Stuttgart/injury/loan demons

Edit: 

According to wikipedia its his third goal for Thun and he's played 20 games already. That's a massive improvement on the last couple of years.

It's his 4th goal for Thun I think but he has 3 league goals for them.

Really happy for the judas hobbit. He had a tough year or so, seems like he's gotten through it.

That was a good little finish too.

Decent finish from Rojas. He also did some nice defence too at the 2 minute mark.

Yeah it does look like he is enjoying himself.Go son

What about that free kick to put Vaduz 2 - 1 up!?

Marco playing extremely well

Lost 3-1 away overnight in Bern vs BSC Young Boys. Played 63' and then was subbed off. The score was 1-1 at the start of the 2nd half when Young Boys had a man sent off, but managed to score two minutes later before scoring a third in the 84th minute.

From memory this is the second or third time since Marco joined Thun that they manage to lose to a team with 10 men. Interesting.

Marco was an unused substitute in this morning's 3-1 loss to Swiss powerhouse FC Basel.

A certain guy by the name of Marc Janko scoring a brace for FC Basel.

Came on after 72 in Thun's 3-1 loss at Sparta in Prague in the first leg of the Europa League qualifiers.

The return leg is in a week's time (NZ time) and Thun need to win at 2-0 to qualify - big ask!

The highlights show it was one way traffic for most of the game. Thun scored in the first 5' and rarely threatened after that, although they missed an amazing opportunity just before Marco came on. You briefly see Marco come on at 5:57

Looks like there will be a live stream of FC Thun game against FC Vaduz at 11:45pm tonight at www.cricfree.tv

Rojas in the starting XI.

my bad german tells me that Marco hit a shot against the post at 54'

You own a bad german? kinky bastard

My bad german talks to me in my head all the time.

Looks like they beat them 1-0 with Rojas playing the full 90

Looks like they beat them 1-0 with Rojas playing the full 90