IN PREPARING for Switzerland’s game against England tomorrow night Vladimir Petkovic, the head coach, invited his squad to sit down and review an edited video of their World Cup campaign.
The film featured the seven goals they scored in four matches: the Swiss pulled their weight in making the first phase of Brazil 2014 an unusually high-scoring fortnight. The video lingered on one goal in particular, Switzerland’s second in the 2-1 win against Ecuador.
Neutrals may not recall it as vividly as the Swiss do, so, a reminder. It featured a run by the midfielder Valon Behrami, who turned a decisive defensive block in his penalty area into opportunity, surging through challenges and one stumble that left him on hands and knees. He scrambled to his feet, determined to force the counterattack that would end up yielding the winning goal.
Behrami summoned that effort at the end of a sapping hour and a half. Switzerland had trailed at half-time. Thanks to Behrami’s endeavour, Ricardo Rodriguez’s cross and Haris Seferovic’s finish, they gained their 2-1 lead in the last minute of stoppage time. The points would carry them through behind France in their group, two points better than Ecuador in third.
Switzerland’s adventure ended in another nail-biter, an Angel di Maria goal squeezing Argentina past them very late in extra-time in a last-16 tie.
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Moments from the Argentina match also formed part of Petkovic’s presentation to the squad. The 51-year-old, a Croatian born in Bosnia but resident in Switzerland since the 1980s, had put his players in front of the big screen last week not merely to big them up. The errors contributing to the 5-2 defeat by France were analysed, as was the slackness in possession that led to the Di Maria goal.
The Switzerland that Petkovic, and England, need to get a handle on will look much like the World Cup version — competitive but given to vulnerable lapses. The outfield personnel will be scarcely changed from the team that Ottmar Hitzfeld managed for four years, who returned with deep regrets from Brazil, having gone so close to a penalty shootout for a place in the last eight.
“We left disappointed but with our heads held high,” said Gelson Fernandes, the midfield player once of Manchester City and now of the French club Rennes. “We lacked a bit of luck but we will be back, looking to the Euros, with the benefit of that experience.”
“We are quite a young squad,” said Johan Djourou, the Hamburg centre-half formerly of Arsenal. “We had to pick our heads up after the Argentina game. Once we did that, we realised what we had achieved. We showed a lot of character and played a lot of good football there. And we can get better.”
The idea that this Swiss squad should be on the rise is logical. Of the players likely to face England only one, defender Steve von Bergen, is aged over 30. Four of the party named by Petkovic are graduates of the ground-breaking squad who, five summers ago, won the World Cup at under-17 level.
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England will come up against a clutch of players in their early 20s entitled to believe their careers are about to take off.
During the transfer window several upgraded. The striker Josep Drmic, hit-and-miss as a finisher in Brazil, has just joined Bayer Leverkusen, with whom he will play Champions League football this season. Pajtim Kasami will be in the same competition with Olympiakos, for whom he left Fulham. The Bundesliga has become the preferred place of employment for many Swiss starlets. Rodriguez, the dashing left-back, 22 and voted Swiss Footballer of the Year, is at Wolfsburg. Xherdan Shaqiri, also 22, is at Bayern Munich and, encouragingly for Petkovic, actually being noticed there. Shaqiri has started three of Bayern Munich’s four matches this season.
Petkovic, whose previous job was with Lazio, made a point last month of travelling to Bavaria to talk one to one with Shaqiri on how he fits into a 4-3-3 formation, a tweak on Hitzfeld’s preferred system. Petkovic also wanted to emphasise to his star man his importance to the team, long-term.
Petkovic has emphasised to reporters that he sees himself building on Hitzfeld’s work. He is happy to be making his debut as an international manager against England. “Coming up against that sort of opposition motivates the players,” he said. “England are the [group] favourites because of their tradition and experience but we will aim for top spot.”