Walk around the Emirates Stadium on an Arsenal Women matchday and you'll spot numerous No. 13 Lia Wälti jerseys. Nicknamed "Snake Hips" by teammates for her ability to wriggle out of tight spaces, the 32-year-old has anchored the club's midfield for the best part of seven years.
Wälti is a cult hero for the Gunners, but she is a central figure for Switzerland. The La Nati captain has been a mainstay since making her debut at age 18 in 2011 and was part of the teams that secured qualification to the country's first-ever major tournament, the 2015 World Cup, and first Euros in 2017. She captained the side at Euro 2022 and the 2023 World Cup, and is one of only two players to have started every game for Switzerland at a major tournament.
With Switzerland hosting Euro 2025 this summer, Wälti has one piece of advice for fans visiting the country this summer: pack your hiking boots.
"You don't have to do a hard hike," she tells ESPN. "It's more going up the mountain and enjoying the views, the peace, the quiet. There's just nothing other than you and nature."
So why is Switzerland's star player offering travel advice for fans? Well, from the moment her country was announced as hosts for Euro 2025, Wälti began plotting what she could do to boost the tournament's profile. Her first idea was to write a children's book with her sister -- and they eventually published the almost-biographical "Lia's Football Journey" earlier this year. The second was to start an Instagram page.
"Every Arsenal fan I've seen after games would say 'can you give us some advice for the Euros in Switzerland? Where can we stay? What can we do? What are the best hikes?'" Wälti tells ESPN. "I just thought: why not try to push the cities, the locations, the host cities to give information to the fans?"
Nearly a year ago, Wälti set up "Lia's Switzerland" where she shares her recommendations and answers fan queries in the comments section. Soon her teammates got involved, with tourism boards and host cities also joining forces.
Their efforts underline the significance of Switzerland hosting the Euros. England's hosting (and winning) of Euro 2022 helped drive record growth in women's and girls' football in the years before and after the tournament. There are hopes that this summer's event will be a catalyst for a country that only made its first appearance at a major tournament a decade ago.
"I hope that the Euros will give us that extra push for people to see that this game actually has a lot of potential, even in Switzerland, and that they want to push and invest and give the girls a chance ... the same chance as the boys basically," Wälti says.
"Probably [it] never will be like in England, because men's football is not like in England either. So we have to respect that, but it can at least be equal; that you have the same opportunities, same facilities, same conditions, and same possibilities as well."
The Swiss Women's Super League, which was started in 1970, remains semi-professional, has only a handful of national team players in it and average attendances hover near the 400-mark. To date, the Swiss Football Association doesn't have a separate committee for the women's game.
The national team have only won a single game at the two European Championships (2017, 2022) they have participated in. But consistent appearances on the world stage over the past decade have boosted the team's profile and pedigree. In last October's international window, they drew 1-1 with 2023 World Cup semifinalists Australia before beating heavyweights France 2-1. The game against the Matildas in Zurich drew a record attendance of 14,370, and that record was smashed again just two months later against Germany (17,306).
Hopes are high for Euro 2025 and Wälti spoke effusively of the team's desire to "write history" and reach the knockout stages for the first time in their history. With her blend of national pride and international experience, the midfielder is seen as the perfect person to helm Switzerland at such a crucial juncture in their journey.
"I think she [Wälti] is very underrated in the women's game in general because I think she's an unbelievable player," Aston Villa and Switzerland defender Noelle Martitz tells ESPN. "She pulls the strings and everything, but obviously she's not the one that scores the goals or makes the last pass, but it's the second to last pass that sometimes counts more."
Maritz and Wälti have been international teammates for more than a decade, and have previously shared a dressing room at Arsenal. Their paths first crossed at a residential football academy near Bern when they were in their early teens. Every year, the academy took in the 10 best girls at youth level for up to three years; Maritz and Wälti's time there overlapped for a year.
"I think already at a young age you could see that she already had that leader gene in her. It's no surprise that she is the captain of our Switzerland team for a few years now," Maritz says. "So already at a young age she has had that characteristic to her, just always happy to help, always there for giving advice."
Wälti recalls her time at the academy as an important part in her development as it was one of the few schools in the country at the time where girls could skip classes for training. However, they didn't play competitive games, so on weekends she played for boys' teams.
"I do think so [playing with boys helped]," she says. "I think when I was 16, 17 and I slowly got introduced to women's football, I was more than ready for the step into the highest level in Switzerland that time. I probably trained on a better level than most of these girls and that kind of set me up for being already a starting player at 16, 17 for female teams."
Wälti began her senior career at BSC YB Frauen, the women's outfit of BSC Young Boys, and won the Swiss league in 2011. She made her Champions League debut for the club at the age of 18, before joining German side Turbine Potsdam in 2013. The midfielder was named captain in her second season at the club and after a five-year stint joined Arsenal in 2018.
While she has spent a majority of her club career outside Switzerland, she is the undoubted face of women's football in the country. And, it's a role she has embraced.
"I see it more as a responsibility thing; I want to use my voice to push the game forward, to push for things to improve," she says. "I appreciate that I am part of a generation where we have experienced both -- where we kind of experienced the part where it was really difficult, where we didn't have good conditions, [and] now we actually get to enjoy the game way more.
"I also want to bring that to Switzerland, to show how it works in other countries, in other clubs and other federations and help to push the game in Switzerland as well."