FC Vaduz

Fussball Club Vaduz was founded on 14 February 1932 in Vaduz, and the club's first chairman was Johann Walser. FC Vaduz is the only professional football club in Liechtenstein. In its first training match, which Vaduz played in Balzers on 24 April of that year, the newly born team emerged as 2–1 winners. The club played in Vorarlberger Football Association in Austria for the 1932–33 season. In 1933, Vaduz began playing in Switzerland. Over the years, Vaduz struggled through various tiers of Swiss football and won its first Liechtensteiner Cup in 1949. Vaduz enjoyed a lengthy stay in the Swiss 1. Liga from 1960 to 1973, which is the third tier of the Swiss football league system.

Vaduz has been required to pay a fee to the Swiss Football Association in order to participate as a foreign club, around £150,000 a year. There have been calls for this agreement to be revoked, but discussions have meant that a permanent arrangement has now taken place for a Liechtenstein representative to be allowed to participate in the Challenge League or Super League in the future.

From the 2001–02 season, Vaduz played in the Swiss Challenge League (formerly called Nationalliga B), the second tier of the Swiss league system. Since then, Vaduz has been one of the best teams in the Challenge League and gave serious challenges towards promotion to the Super League, especially in 2004 and 2005, playing two-leg play-offs in both cases. In the 2007–08 season, Vaduz secured promotion to the Swiss Super League on 12 May 2008 by winning the Challenge League on the season's final day, giving Liechtenstein a representative at the highest level of Swiss football for the first time. Vaduz, however, was relegated back to the Challenge League after one season in the top flight. Vaduz finally returned to the top level after five years in the Challenge League.

In May 2010, the two Liechtenstein teams, FC Vaduz and USV Eschen/Mauren, decided on better cooperation, especially on the exchange and the development possibilities of the players of both teams. In principle, the agreement should replace the missing substructure at FC Vaduz and promote cooperation in the sense of Liechtenstein football. FC Vaduz is the first address for professional footballers.

In 1992, Vaduz qualified for European football for the first time, entering the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup as Liechtenstein Cup winners, but lost 12–1 on aggregate to Chornomorets Odesa of Ukraine in the qualifying round. In 1996, Vaduz qualified for the first round proper with their first European victory, winning 5–3 on penalties against Universitate Riga of Latvia, after a 2–2 aggregate scoreline, although Vaduz lost their first round tie to Paris Saint-Germain of France 7–0 on aggregate.

After the Cup Winners' Cup was abolished, Vaduz has annually entered the UEFA Cup (now the UEFA Europa League) as a result of winning the Liechtenstein Cup every year since 1998, except in 2012.

However, Vaduz did come within one second of reaching the first round proper of the UEFA Cup in 2002. With the aggregate scores level, and with opponents Livingston scheduled to go through on away goals, Vaduz won a late corner. The ball was sent into the box, and Marius Zarn hit a goal-bound shot. However, the referee blew the whistle for full-time just before the ball crossed over the line, and Livingston progressed through in controversial circumstances.

For the 2005–06 season, Mats Gren was a coach. In the first round of the 2005–06 UEFA Cup qualifying, FC Vaduz defeated Moldovan opponent FC Dacia Chişinău. In the second round they met the Istanbul club Beşiktaş J.K., against which they were eliminated.

FC Vaduz started their European campaign in 2009–10 by beating Scottish side Falkirk in the second qualifying round of the Europa League. However, they lost 3–0 on aggregate to Czech side Slovan Liberec in the third qualifying round.

In the 2014–15 Swiss Super League season, Vaduz survived for the first time in their history in the Swiss Super League. They finished in 9th place with 31 points won. They also won their 43rd Liechtenstein cup, becoming world record holders of a domestic cup in the process.

In season 2015–16 FC Vaduz started their European campaign in the 2015–16 UEFA Europa League by beating S.P. La Fiorita from San Marino in the first qualifying round of the Europa League. In the second round, Vaduz progressed against Nõmme Kalju FC to progress into the third qualifying round of the Europa League where they were drawn against fellow Swiss Super League club FC Thun. FC Thun won 2–2 on the away goals rule.

Vaduz won their domestic cup for the forty-fourth time and were eighth in the Swiss Super League. They won a team record thirty-six points. Vaduz player Armando Sadiku represented Albania at Euro 2016.

The team appeared for the first time in a popular sports video game, FIFA 17. This was the first time in history that a team from Liechtenstein appeared in the sports video game series.

After three years in the elite Swiss competition, the only and most awarded Liechtenstein team relegated. It was not a good season 2016–17, where they even changed the coach Giorgio Contini after almost 5 years at the helm, and in his place came the German coach Roland Vrabec, but Vaduz has not succeeded to survive in Swiss Super League.

On 5 September 2018, they terminated the agreement with Roland Vrabec. On September 17, they presented a new coach Mario Frick. He is the first coach from Liechtenstein in history.^[]

In season 2019–20 FC Vaduz started their European campaign in the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League by beating Breiðablik from Iceland in the first qualifying round of the Europa League. In the second round, Vaduz caused a shock by knocking out Hungarian side MOL Fehérvár. In the third qualifying round of the Europa League they played against Eintracht Frankfurt. The Bundesliga team easily won both matches. However, those matches were historic for the club. In the first match in Vaduz there were 5,908 spectators present, while the city as a whole has a population of only 5,521.

On 25 August 2022, after an away victory against Rapid Wien, Vaduz secured qualification for the group stages of the Europa Conference League, becoming the first ever team from Liechtenstein to reach the group stages of a European club competition. They were subsequently drawn into Group E where they played against Dutch side AZ, Cypriot champions Apollon Limassol and Ukrainian side Dnipro-1. After a solid start to the group, with a goalless draw at home to Apollon, Vaduz would only go on and collect one more point, away against Dnipro-1, thus finishing bottom of the group with two points from their six games.

On 20 June 2023, Vaduz drew Belarusian side Neman Grodno in the 2023-24 UEFA Europa Conference League first qualifying round.