André Muff

Early years

Muff played his youth football with local amateur club SC Emmen. Aged just 15 years old he played as midfielder in their first team in the 2. Liga, then the fourth tier of Swiss football league system. The midfielder was scouted by Grasshopper Club and joined their youth program in 1997, playing for their U-21 team. During this time, he was trained to play centre forward. For the 1999–2000 season he advanced to their first team under head coach Roy Hodgson. Muff played his team debut on 26 August 1999 in the UEFA Cup match away against Irish team Bray Wanderers. He was substituted in the 63rd minute and two minutes later he scored the team's fourth goal as they won 4–0. In the domestic league GC ended the season in fourth position, Muff had 7 league appearances scoring four goals.

Basel

On 21 March 2000 it was announced that Muff was moving to FC Basel on a four-year contract. He joined Basel's first team for their 2000–01 season under head coach Christian Gross. Because Gross had other good strikers such as Jean-Michel Tchouga, Edmond N'Tiamoah, Hervé Tum and George Koumantarakis, he used Muff as a winger. After playing in five test games Muff played his domestic league debut for the club in the away game on 19 July 2000 as Basel were defeated 2–0 by Xamax. He scored his first goal for his new club on 10 August during the away game in the qualifying round of the 2000–01 UEFA Cup as Basel won 5–1 against Folgore from San Marino Basel started…