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The Swiss U21s are going through emotional chaos at the European Championship after losing 4-1 to France and qualifying for the quarter-finals at the same time.
After this crazy evening at the U21 European Championship, the Swiss national team was in emotional chaos. Despite the clear 4-1 defeat against France, they have reached the knockout stages of a European Championship for the first time since 2011. Only thanks to the better goal difference (4:4) compared to the Norwegians (2:2) and Italy (3:3) who have the same number of points, Switzerland is now in the quarter-finals.
“It’s a bit bizarre,” said Dan Ndoye, the only Swiss goalscorer. Teammate Aurèle Amenda also says: “We are disappointed with the defeat, but at the same time proud of the quarter-final qualification.” It was probably the “most beautiful 1: 4 of his career”.
Key in Italy game
Shortly after the game, coach Patrick Frame had already sorted his thoughts a little better than his protégés: “Our advancement is a bit lucky. The bottom line is that it’s deserved, because we did everything we could to make it happen. Up to 1: 2 today was again a top performance. » It was only at the end that they fell apart.
“But you can now see that the key is that Italy game was: If we hadn’t come back after the 0:3 and hadn’t reduced the deficit to 2:3, it wouldn’t have been enough today,” emphasized Frame.
The coach and the whole team are extremely happy about the quarter-final qualification. “It was a difficult group, we left a big nation behind us,” said Frame. The next one should follow on Saturday evening: In the fight for the semi-finals, Switzerland will meet Spain from 8 p.m. (live on SRF).
The U21 national team wants to put this wild Wednesday evening behind them as quickly as possible. Ndoye emphasizes: “We are now concentrating on this game. We know we can do even better than today.”