Switzerland’s former soccer captain Stephan Lichtsteiner might have called time on his glittering sports career, but he has started a new venture — training to become a watchmaker.
Lichtsteiner, who made 108 appearances for the Swiss national side, has started an internship, lasting up to six months, at Zurich firm Maurice de Mauriac.
“I want to do something productive,” the 37-year-old former Juventus, SS Lazio and Arsenal defender said on Friday last week.
Photo: Reuters
“If you are a banker ... you can do that for all your life, but if you are a footballer, once you hit your mid-30s, you have to find something else to do,” he said.
He said he would make a watch during his internship that would be sold off for charity. After that, he was open to the idea of becoming a full-time watchmaker, but had not decided for sure and might still return to sports.
“I see some similarities to football,” he said.
“In football if not all the team is perfect, you will not win. It’s the same with a watch, if everything is not perfectly in place, the watch is not going to work,” he added.
The company’s owners, Leonard Dreifuss and Massimo Dreifuss, said they were delighted to have Lichtsteiner on board as their first trainee.
“We had lots of applications, but Stephan was the most enthusiastic,” art director Leonard Dreifuss said.
“We are aiming for a long-term partnership and will move step by step,” CEO Massimo Dreifuss said, when asked if Lichtsteiner would invest in the company.
The brothers said they first met Lichtsteiner at a business talk near Zurich in October last year.
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