Swisster Act (Nils Nielsen interview)

A single page with Switzerland’s Danish head coach, whose side face Sweden and the Netherlands and whose own hopes rest partly on Paris Saint-Germain’s Ramona Bachmann and Arsenal’s Lia Walti. Nils Nielsen reached the EURO 2017 final with Denmark, losing to the Netherlands after also losing to them in the group, and is happy enough to meet them again. The interview’s substance is cultural rather than tactical. In Denmark, he says, everyone expected to be heard and there was no right or wrong, just a shared direction; in Switzerland players grow up taught that their opinion matters less, and much of his work has been persuading them to express it, opening up what he calls the little Swiss oyster. He embraces the annoying-little-sister role his standfirst gives him.