I won Champions League with Arsenal just months after coming off life support – now I’m eyeing Euros win like my idol
Lia Wälti was at a national team camp in Cannes when it was announced that her country, Switzerland, would be hosting Euro 2025.
Well, to be specific, she was at a national camp – sleeping!
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The Swiss skipper recalled how she accidentally set her alarm later the morning the news was delivered to her team.
“I missed the announcement,” she told GQ in an interview. “Everybody was downstairs having a glass of Champagne, but I missed the whole thing!”
It is an anecdote that brings a smile to one’s face, more so because anyone who has ever seen Walti play will know that she almost never makes mistakes.
Just as Leah Williamson became known as the inspirational captain at the heart of England’s success at the 2022 home Euros, Switzerland are about to see their own ‘LW’ transform into the same figure this summer.
The 32-year-old – who has already published a children’s book ‘Lia’s Football Journey’ designed to get young boys and girls into sport – will hope turn her 125 caps into a strong Euros run when it begins on 2 July.
Not only has Walti been the cool, calm and collected captain of the Swiss national team since 2019, she has also been the heartbeat of one of the WSL’s most successful sides for even longer than that.
Her most marked successes in her career have come during her time at Arsenal, a club she signed for in 2018.
Her first season at the club was a memorable one – not least because she helped the Gunners to a WSL title victory.
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So influential was she that despite suffering an LCL injury which kept her off the pitch for nine months, she still made it into the PFA Team of the Year that season.
Since then, she has gone from strength to strength at Arsenal, racking up a total of 177 appearances.
Dubbed ‘snake-hips’ by her teammates for her skill on the ball, fast feet and ability to slither out of tight situations, the midfielder is the definition of an underrated star as.
And then in May 2025 came a moment that Walti and her teammates will never forget.
The side defied all the odds to defeat the might of Barcelona and reclaim the Champions League trophy, becoming only the second English side to win it (the first was Arsenal’s 2006/06 squad).
While she did not feature in the final itself, Walti’s contribution to the trophy was vast – she had made 10 appearances during their Champions League campaign, and also added a goal during their 4-0 thrashing of BK Hacken.
But Walti’s road has not been without some seriously difficult obstacles.
Last year was particularly difficult due to a number of medical issues – in fact, one proved so severe that she found herself on life support.
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Having already struggled with knee injuries at the beginning of the year, Walti had thought she was recovering slowly – but then she found a lump on her body.
Speaking to blue Sport, she explains how things could have gone very differently had she not discovered it when she did.
“What looked small turned out to be an abscess,” she said. Because we recognized it early, I got the help I needed.”
She added: “It’s life-threatening if you don’t take it seriously or don’t find it.”
That experience will no doubt mean that this summer will be even more meaningful for Walti this summer, as she leads her team out on July 2.
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Inspired by Zinedine Zidane as a five-year-old, as she told GQ, Walti has not just been preparing for the tournament on the pitch either.
Determined to make this summer one to remember, Walti has also become something of an unofficial PR representative for the Euros.
“Every Arsenal fan I’ve seen after games would say ‘can you give us some advice for the Euros in Switzerland?” she told ESPN. Where can we stay? What can we do? What are the best hikes?’
“I just thought: why not try to push the cities, the locations, the host cities to give information to the fans?”
And so Walti set up the Instagram page “Lia’s Switzerland” which has more than 18,000 followers, and it is now being supported by tourism boards and host cities to help answer fan questions.
She hopes that her work can help women’s football to undergo even a fraction of the revolution that it has seen in England.
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“Probably [it] never will be like in England, because men’s football is not like in England either,” she said.
“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.”
Switzerland have never made it to the knockout stages of the Euros before, but if ever there is a time to do it, it is now.
Theirs is perhaps the most open group of the tournament – they have been drawn alongside Norway, Iceland and Finland, with none of these teams necessarily obvious favourites to progress.
Walti has already won a Champions League trophy this year – but things could be about to get even bigger.
For a strong home Euros run in a country that is ripe for a revolution in the women’s game could change everything for her – as we in England know all too well.
talkSPORT has extensive radio coverage of Women’s Euro 2025 with live commentary of every England and Wales game in Switzerland.