“We have just witnessed the Champions League debut goal of one of the next Ballon d’Or winners,” exclaimed a journalist at the end of the match.
It was the first leg of the holders’ quarter-final and Barcelona had just sealed their place in the next round after winning 4-1 against Wolfsburg in Germany. The fourth goal was scored in the 88th minute by a player from the reserve team who came on three minutes earlier, replacing Alexia Putellas.
Sydney Schertenleib collected possession on the edge of the Germans’ box, dribbled past a defender and struck a stunning shot into the top corner. Next to her, Aitana Bonmati — the reigning Ballon d’Or holder — had stopped moving in the penalty area and stood watching, impressed by what she had just seen. She immediately grabbed her team-mate by the neck as the Swiss player turned around, her braids waving in the air.
Those three minutes were all it took for her to score and make her mark on the European football scene.
Now the 18-year-old is the bright hope for Switzerland as they host the European Championship.
Schertenleib was 16 years old at the 2023 European Under-17 Championship in Estonia and was one of the outstanding players in the tournament. After eliminating Germany in their final group match, Switzerland reached the semi-finals but suffered a 10-2 thrashing by eventual winners France.
She caught the attention of several big clubs. One of those was Barcelona, who were already watching her.
“The first time I saw Sydney was in October 2022,” Dani Sanchez, the head scout for Barcelona Women at the time, tells . Markel Zubizarreta took Sanchez with him when he went to Kynisca Sports, the giant club chaired by South Korean businesswoman Michele Kang.
“I was following (Italy’s) Giulia Dragoni by then. In the under-17 groups, in the preliminary rounds, they form groups of four teams and the winner of the mini-league goes through to the next round.
“There was a group consisting of Italy, Switzerland, France and Finland. Italy was the host. I was there to follow Dragoni, and in the match against Switzerland the whole team caught my attention. I saw Sydney very quickly. She has a presence that catches your eye, something unusual in women’s football. She had great coordination and technique. It wasn’t a difficult case to spot. You didn’t need a special eye because she stood out so much.
“Players with her physical characteristics who also have talent and good technique are very few and far between. It’s something that’s hard to find.
“When I saw her, I wrote a report with her profile and left it there, because she was still too young to be signed. At the end of the season (in the 2023 U17 European Championship), I saw her again and she confirmed what I had already seen in October 2022.”
He had access to videos with all her performances. When the Swiss youth teams gathered in Alicante in Spain in 2023, he came to see her play live.
“She played a friendly match against Spain,” he recalls. “She was under-17 but already playing with the under-19s. It was a very good reference because she was playing against players we already knew, such as Vicky Lopez. It was useful for us to be able to compare. That was the day we decided to contact her.”
She was a player who stood out from the rest, starting with her physique — she is 5ft 10in (178cm) tall with long braids that immediately catch the eye, but above all for her technique and elegance.
Barcelona also wanted to see her in an environment where she was playing with senior first-teamers, rather than just with other teenagers. They went to watch her play in Switzerland with her club, Grasshopper Zurich.
Before that — up until 2023 — she had been at FC Zurich, a more established team in women’s football but one that has tended to favour experienced players. There, they assured her she would progress a lot but that she would play with their Under-21 team. At Grasshopper, they were more committed to young talent and guaranteed her playing time with the first team, so her family recommended she sign for that club, even though it was a move that might surprise people.
Sanchez was convinced Schertenleib was a player they had to sign as soon as possible, before another big club snapped her up.
Looking for a way to contact her, they realised she did not yet have an agent, so they contacted her via direct message on Instagram, as she explained in an interview with Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos.
Sanchez was the person who reached her.
“Everybody is talking about this anecdote,” he says, laughing. “I want to make clear that at no point did we offer her the option of coming via Instagram! When we fill out the forms for interesting players in the club’s database, we are asked for the player’s contact details in case we need to get in touch with her at any time. Also, when her contract ends, the more information we have, the better. We saw that she didn’t have an agent. The club’s manager contacted Grasshopper and, at the same time, I contacted her on Instagram to ask who her agent was and if she could give us a contact person or her parents’ details.”
A few weeks later, Schertenleib was already in Barcelona. On June 25, 2024, her signing was made official with the idea she would first play for Baraa B. However, her performance in the Joan Gamper Trophy — the pre-season friendly that kicks off the new season each year — caught the attention of head coach Pere Romeu and his staff. She started playing for Barca B and was quickly promoted to the first team.
She made her official debut with the first team in November 2024 against SD Eibar and ended the season playing a total of 764 minutes in 22 matches, scoring two goals.
According to sources from the Barcelona technical staff who prefer to remain anonymous to protect relationships, the player quickly integrated into the first team’s dressing room and has been accepted by everyone. This is something they consider very important and significant. The staff are aware they have a rough diamond on their hands and want to guide her well and be patient with her.
“She has a lot of room for improvement and is a player who will be talked about a lot now and in the future,” Romeu said at a press conference in March.
Although many are already thinking about replacements for Patri Guijarro when she needs a rest and have set their sights on the Swiss player for that role, Barcelona see her playing as an attacking midfielder or winger. They like her elegance, the way she handles the ball, how she reads the space when she does not have it, her technique and her versatility. However, they are aware that, due to her young age, she still has a lot to learn.
“Given her qualities, her ideal position is not very clear,” Sanchez says. “In my opinion, playing her at the base of the play, as a defensive pivot, means not taking full advantage of her potential. A more advanced position with the option of getting forward seems more suitable to me. Despite being tall, she is a skilful player who sees the inside passes well. For me, her ideal position is “8” with the option of getting into the opposition’s area.”
That she is not the finished product was clear in December 2024 when the Catalans faced Real Betis. Schertenleib came on in the second half and a loss of possession led to Betis’ only goal. The player left the stadium in tears despite her team winning 4-1.
She has so much potential in attack and is such a goalscorer that she is seen as more suited to playing closer to the opposition’s area. However, she will have to bide her time in that area. The Catalan midfield is packed with elite players and seems unbreakable with Guijarro, Bonmati and Putellas.
It took just a few games for everyone to realise a star was born. At this home Euros, she has an opportunity to shine and show she deserves more playing time next season at Barcelona, where she has already laid the foundations for an exciting career.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Barcelona, Switzerland, Women’s Soccer, Women’s Euros
