Skillful players with the ball, a lot of commitment, a qualification in game and a hint of rivalry: these are the ingredients for a superb football match, proposed by the Swiss team and Serbia, Friday, December 2, at the 974 stadium , in Doha.
For this last act of group G, the final score before the knockout phase which begins on Saturday, the Nati snatched the 16e and last ticket to the round of 16 of the World Cup in Qatar. She won (3-2) against the Eagles, in an intense match with twists and turns.
In the other match of the group, Cameroon created a sensation by winning (1-0) against a revamped Brazilian team – the Seleçao having already booked their ticket for the rest of the competition at the end of the second day. Despite this goal from Vincent Aboubakar at the very end of the match, the Indomitable Lions failed in third place, with four points – two less than Switzerland, who had beaten them on the first day of the tournament.
Serbia-Switzerland in a decisive World Cup match… There was a taste of revenge in the air. Four years earlier in Russia, the Nati had already won against the Eagles, and their players’ goal celebrations had caused controversy.
Victims of racist chants by some Serbian fans during the match, the Swiss Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri had responded by mimicking an Albanian double-headed eagle, in reference to their origin (the two players are indeed from Kosovo, which their families had left during the war in the 1990s, when it was a province of Serbia, mainly populated by Albanian speakers).
Still holders in selection in 2022, Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri had announced that they would no longer do this gesture. The second kept his word on Friday when he opened the scoring in this “remake”. Served by Djibril Sow in the box, the former Olympique Lyonnais player, now with the club at the Chicago Fire, concluded with a first-line strike from the inside of the left foot (0-1, 20e).
This match, which had started full throttle with a triple chance for the Nati after not even 25 seconds of play, will not decrease in intensity, quite the contrary. A quarter of an hour after the opening of the scoring, Serbia completely reversed the situation, thanks to two assists from their captain, Dusan Tadic: the first on the head of Aleksandar Mitrovic (1-1, 26e), the second in the race of the rising star of the selection, Dusan Vlahovic (2-1, 35e), which places an unstoppable cross shot for Gregor Kobel, tenured in the Swiss cages in the absence of Yann Sommer, sick.
“The best Swiss national team that has ever existed”
At this time of the evening, it is Serbia that is virtually qualified for the round of 16 of the World Cup, which has not happened in its three previous participations (in 2006, as Serbia-Montenegro, 2010 and 2018). But that was without counting on Breel Embolo, who took advantage of a service on a silver platter from Silvan Widmer, at the far post, to equalize just before half-time (2-2, 44e).
Then comes the fifth goal of the evening, among the most beautiful since the start of the World Cup. Breel Embolo struggles to recover the ball in the opposing box. He plays in pivot towards Xherdan Shaqiri, who serves a “shady” pass in the box towards Vargas. Blind, the latter shifts Remo Freuler: the Nottingham Forest player concludes the action with a cross shot (2-3, 48e). This will be the highlight of the evening.
As in their previous match, where they saw Cameroon come back from 3-1 to 3-3, Serbia is affected. The more the minutes pass, the more she seems resigned. The five substitutes launched by coach Dragan Stojkovic do not change anything. In additional time, the Swiss Granit Xhaka and the Serbian Nikola Milenkovic challenge each other, everyone gets involved… The Argentine referee, Fernando Andrés Rapallini, is not far from showing the red card. At the final whistle, the players of the Nati can exult.
“I think we are seeing the best Swiss national team that has ever existed”, had warned before the tournament the coach of Switzerland, Murat Yakin. Portugal has been warned. It will be the next opponent of the Nati in the round of 16, Tuesday, at 8 p.m., at the Lusail stadium. The two teams find themselves in the lower part of the table, which also includes France… defeated by Switzerland at the Euro in July 2021.
For its part, Brazil, who finished top of group G (6 points), will face South Korea on Monday at 8 p.m. in the same stadium 974, in Doha. The Serbs will return home with their suitcases full of regrets.