World Cup preview: Switzerland
Coach: Ottmar Hitzfeld
Key player: Alexander Frei
Previous best: Quarter finals 1934, 1938 & 1954
Tournament football has been eventful for Alexander Frei.
A goalscorer at club level wherever he’s played, be that France, Germany or his native Switzerland, and at international level too, things have never quite worked out for him during the summer showpiece events.
A moment of madness at Euro 2004 saw him spit at England’s Steven Gerrard and earn a suspension that made him miss the rest of the tournament, then at the 2006 World Cup he scored twice during the group stages but toiled in the second-round clash with the Ukraine in Cologne, before the Swiss exited on penalties.
At Euro 2008, where he was captaining the joint hosts and widely tipped to lead their charge into the latter stages, an injury in the first half of the tournament’s opening game saw him ruled out of the rest of Switzerland’s matches.
He’s obviously a glutton for punishment, because he’s back again.
Frei captained the Swiss side that suffered an embarrassing 2-1 home defeat to Luxembourg in just their second qualifier, but – despite that result heaping pressure upon veteran German coach Ottmar Hitzfeld – they were to recover, going unbeaten for the rest of the campaign and pipping Greece to top spot by a point, with both Frei and Blaise Nkufo finishing as joint top scorers with five goals apiece.
The 35-year-old, Zaire-born Nkufo will join Seattle Sounders in the MLS after the tournament, bringing a successful spell in the Netherlands with FC Twente to an end. With Switzerland, he forms a strike partnership with Frei that is high on both experience and quality.
Whether that can be said about the rest of the squad is up for debate.
Philippe Senderos’ progress has dramatically stalled ever since he burst onto the scene at Arsenal, but the Swiss will be relying on him to hold together their defence at the finals.
The West Ham midfielder Valon Behrami adds a creativity and dynamism from the wings, while Sampdoria’s left back Reto Ziegler – formerly of Tottenham Hotspur – loves to get forward and rain in the crosses for Frei and Nkufo to attack.
Veteran midfielder Hakan Yakin scored all of Switzerland’s goals at Euro 2008 and is back again, while younger talents such as Gökhan Inler, Tranquillo Barnetta and Eren Derdiyok add guile and quality to the squad, with all three the subjects of interest from some of Europe’s bigger clubs.
Sadly for the Swiss, they will probably find the movement and pace of the Spanish and the Chileans too much during their Group H encounters.
Hitzfeld is a vastly experienced coach, having won the Champions League with both Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, and there is no doubt that Switzerland will be a well drilled, well organised unit, but the difference in quality between them and their group opponents will be too vast, and a heavy defeat in their opening match against Spain could prove damaging to morale.
Frei will have to wait even longer for tournament glory.
Switzerland squad
1 Diego BENAGLIO (Wolfsburg)
2 Stephan LICHTSTEINER (Lazio)
3 Reto ZIEGLER (Sampdoria)
4 Philippe SENDEROS (Arsenal)
5 Steve VON BERGEN (Hertha Berlin)
6 Benjamin HUGGEL (Basle)
7 Tranquillo BARNETTA (Bayer Leverkusen)
8 Gökhan INLER (Udinese)
9 Alex FREI (Basle)
10 Blaise NKUFO (Twente)
11 Valon BEHRAMI (West Ham)
12 Marco WÖLFLI (Young Boys)
13 Stéphane GRICHTING (Auxerre)
14 Marco PADALINO (Sampdoria)
15 Hakan YAKIN (Lucerne)
16 Gelson FERNANDES (St. Etienne)
17 Ludovic MAGNIN (Zurich)
18 Albert BUNJAKU (Nuremburg)
19 Eren DERDIYOK (Bayer Leverkusen)
20 Pirmin SCHWEGLER (Eintracht Frankfurt)
21 Johnny LEONI (Zurich)
22 Mario EGGIMANN (Hannover)
23 Xherdan SHAQIRI (Basel)
For previews of Switzerland's Group H opponents click here:
http://www.senore.com/World-Cup-2010-preview-Chile-a12473
http://www.senore.com/World-Cup-2010-preview-Honduras-a12474
http://www.senore.com/World-Cup-2010-preview-Spain-a12475
Tags: