04.06.2024 21:49
Men’s national team: Clear victory against Estonia
The Swiss men’s national team wins the test match against Estonia by 4-0 in Lucerne.
The Swiss national team opened the scoring very early thanks to a great strike from Steven Zuber (20th). It was his first goal for the national team in more than two and a half years. In the meantime, however, he had only come into play seven times. Three minutes before the 1-0, Kwadwo Duah, who made his debut for the national team today, had a good chance, but he failed in front of the Estonian goalkeeper. There were less than two minutes of play in the second half when Ruben Vargas passed to Zeki Amdouni and he increased Switzerland’s lead.
After the second goal, Estonia’s resistance was broken. In his farewell match, coach Thomas Häberli saw his team concede two more goals. Nico Elvedi was there on a rebound, Xherdan Shaqiri scored from a penalty which was replayed because the goalkeeper came out too early. It was the Swiss’ biggest victory since 5-0 against Belarus in March last year.
On Saturday (6 p.m.), Switzerland will play its second match in St. Gallen, the dress rehearsal of the tournament against Austria, which is participating in the Euro. After a Sunday off, the national team will then travel to Stuttgart on Monday, where they will stay during the tournament. The final selection for the Euro must be announced to UEFA by Friday June 7.
The voices after the match:
Steven Zuber (1-0 scorer): “In the end, it’s up to you to put what you know how to do on the pitch, the rest is not in your hands. There are others who deserve it too, but in the end it’s the coach who decides. I’m usually the type to give it my all every day, it’s the only way to never be disappointed in yourself. It’s the only way to sleep soundly. Murat Yakin and I have known each other for a long time, we don’t need many words to understand each other. I’m more of the type to focus on actions, not words.
Kwadwo Duah (beginner): “The foot is fine. I took a hit, but everything is fine. My mission was to put on steam for 45 minutes, the replacement at the break was agreed like this. It wasn’t easy against such a lowly opponent. I was very happy to play my first international match. The last few weeks have been a bit surreal, it’s a dream come true for me. A few weeks ago, I was perhaps hoping for the Euro, but I wasn’t thinking about it. Now we hope for it a little and see what happens. Anyway, today was a good day.”
Xherdan Shaqiri (4-0 penalty scorer): “We saw that the Estonians were well grouped behind, but we trained well all week to know how to make them break. We had a good match, we played to zero and we even defended with ten men at the end. It also did us good. We all know we don’t have much time and now we are all trying to put these mechanisms in place on the pitch, which is what we want to show at the Euros.”
►Telegram: Switzerland – Estonia 4-0 (1-0)
ASF / with material from Keystone-ATS / translated with deepL.com
