Yann Sommer ends his career in the national team

 

Yann Sommer doesn’t want to talk about Gregor Kobel right now. Everything else is fine. But Gregor Kobel? No, better not. The question is whether he has been in contact with Kobel, his successor in goal for the Swiss national team. Perhaps he has given him a few tips. “No, no contact,” says Sommer, succinctly.

The 35-year-old is not usually a man of monosyllables; he is very different from many of his colleagues. He says sentences that know from the beginning where they want to end. And then they do. That remains the case even on this day, which must be a difficult one for Sommer because he has come to Zurich to announce the end of an era. His own, in goal for the Swiss national team.

Even on a day like this, Yann Sommer keeps his composure. There are no tears to be seen from him. But to talk about Kobel? That’s asking a bit much.

He helped shape Switzerland’s most successful phase

Yann Sommer was the goalie for the Swiss national team for 94 games. He has been the number one since 2014. At that time, he took over from Diego Benaglio, who surprisingly retired at just 30 years of age. The Zurich native has always been a good, sometimes even outstanding, support for his team over the years, for example at the 2021 European Championship, in the round of 16 against France and in the quarter-final against Spain.

Since he took over as goalkeeper after the World Cup in Brazil, Switzerland has made it to every major tournament. Three European Championships, two World Cups, and they have always been there. That had never happened before. The last ten years have been the most successful in the history of local football. The national team even reached the quarter-finals twice, most recently at the European Championships in Germany this summer. They had never managed that before in modern times either.

 

Sommer left his mark on and off the pitch during these years. He was the face of the team, the nice, friendly one, the one that everyone somehow liked. Because there is little about him that is not to like. He does not exude doggedness, like Stephan Lichtsteiner did. He does not polarize, like Granit Xhaka does.

People like to say that he is the perfect son-in-law, and that’s not entirely wrong. Sommer has always done a lot to cultivate this image; sometimes it seemed as if he always had it in the back of his mind. He was rarely absent from an advertising film.

Sommer smiles in farewell video

Now Sommer is retiring. Before he explains his decision to the media, he has already posted a video on social media. Sommer is leafing through a photo album. Sometimes he looks pensive, now and again a smile crosses his face. Images flicker across the screen: Sommer fending off balls. Sommer celebrating with his teammates.

At the end he stands on a balcony, looks into the distance and then into the camera, and says: “Dear Switzerland, it was an honour. Thank you.” At the media conference, Sommer then says that he had always wanted to retire at a time when he would later say: “Hey, that was cool, that ending.” And also that it was just right for him now, that it was good.

It’s cool, it fits, it’s good. But couldn’t it have turned out completely differently?

The constellation in the national team was a controversial one. Here was Yann Sommer, the long-standing goalkeeper, under contract with the top club Inter Milan. There was Gregor Kobel, his young challenger, only 26 years old but already one of the most valuable goalies in the world. An ambitious man who made no secret of the fact that he wanted to be in goal himself.

For national coach Murat Yakin, this was a luxury problem because he had two top-class goalkeepers. But even luxury problems remain problems. Especially since there were indications that Kobel was no longer willing to accept the status of number two.

The longer the summer lasted, the greater the question became as to what would happen next in the Swiss goal. The Nations League matches against Denmark and Spain are scheduled for early September.

Last Thursday, the news portal “Blue” broke into this explosive situation with the announcement that Yakin had decided to make Kobel the new number one. The news spread like wildfire. The football association simply said that it could not confirm it. Kobel and Sommer remained silent.

This raised a number of questions. First and foremost, what will happen to Sommer now? Will he continue? Will he resign? And, last but not least, does he even know what he wants?

Sommer says it was very important to him to concentrate fully on the tournament before the European Championship. After the defeat against England, he went on holiday and thought about it “a lot”. Finally, around two weeks ago, he met with Patrick Foletti, the national team’s goalkeeping coach, in Milan. And he confirmed his decision to resign.

The decision to resign is said to have been made some time ago

Foletti, Sommer’s long-time companion, is said to have told him in Milan that they could not guarantee that he would still be number one in the Swiss national team in the future. But that was “part of the business” and not the reason for his resignation. Sommer claims to have made this decision beforehand. After all the years in the national team, he wants to have more time for his family and concentrate fully on his club Inter Milan.

But why did Sommer and his large team of advisors fail to communicate proactively? His explanation: out of respect for his club, he did not want to communicate his resignation before the first championship game last weekend.

Sommer recently won the Italian championship in Milan. It was his second championship title in a row, after the one with Bayern Munich in Germany. Before that, the Zurich native had been in goal for Borussia Mönchengladbach for many years. Sommer had joined the Bundesliga club from FC Basel; his coach there had already been Murat Yakin, as he was most recently in the national team. Sommer also recently spoke to Yakin about his future. It was a “very good exchange.”

Sommer’s departure has created a gap in the national team. Gregor Kobel will probably be able to fill the gap in the Swiss goal. He may have only played five international matches, but there are few doubts among experts about his qualities. Another question is how the retirement of long-time leading player Sommer, who was also part of the team council, will affect the inner workings of the team.

Yann Sommer is asked at some point whether he will still be playing when he is 40, like Gianluigi Buffon once did. That is definitely possible, he says. And he sounds like someone who doesn’t really think he is past his prime.