He doesn’t say that Switzerland will win the Euro. But he makes a promise: to give everything to achieve it. The day after the success against Italy, Granit Xhaka affirms that all the lights are green.
‘I have the feeling that the story is not over. I’m still hungry. My teammates are too. And I hate defeat,’ the Basel resident said early Sunday evening at a press conference.
‘Yesterday (Saturday) I was surprised by the… silence of the Italians. We hardly heard them on the pitch. I have the impression that our body language destabilized them as theirs destabilized us during the 3-0 in Rome at Euro 2021.’
‘All the intensity you needed’
As with Murat Yakin and national team manager Pieruigi Tami, it is not Saturday’s result that is most important to Granit Xhaka. It is the manner in which it was achieved.
“We put all the intensity we needed into this match,” says the captain. Passion was also on our side. We knew how to be extremely disciplined both in the phases of possession and in defense.’
After a kebab evening organized by Breel Embolo and a day off on Monday after returning to Stuttgart on Sunday, the Swiss will focus on their quarter-final in Düsseldorf from Tuesday. ‘We will be ready, assures Granit Xhaka. We have time to recover well,’ he continues.
‘I heard my adductors whistling last week when we practiced penalties. I didn’t train with the team on Thursday. But I lasted the 90 minutes on Saturday. I have two or three small injuries, but really nothing serious.’ Nothing that will prevent him from finally playing a quarter-final of the Euro on Saturday after missing the 2021 one against Spain due to a suspension.
A bad for a good
Granit Xhaka finally returned to the 2023 qualifying campaign which had not really smiled on Switzerland to the extent that it was, among the nineteen teams directly qualified for this Euro, the one which signed the most mediocre results sheet.
‘This campaign is turning out to be a blessing in disguise,’ he smiles. She opened our eyes. If we continued like this, we would have had no chance in this Euro. Everything has changed this year. Already in March after the first two matches in Denmark and Ireland, I had a good feeling.’
We know that Granit Xhaka exchanged a lot with Murat Yakin to somehow seal a peace of the brave without which nothing would be possible. ‘I need to feel the warmth of the coach. To communicate with him in an open and transparent manner. This is the case today, he congratulates himself. I must admit that I made mistakes last fall in my communication towards him.’
/ATS
