Football: Xherdan Shaqiri’s Basel debut must be qualified

From the limit of numbers. Very coolly, Xherdan Shaqiri is the best scorer in the Super League this season: nine “points”, or two goals and seven assists. What a debut for the man who returned to FC Basel in August. Except that it is permissible to qualify this comeback. At 33 years old, “Shaq” is far from competing in the Swiss championship. Servette, who travels to Saint-Jacques on Sunday (4:30 p.m.), must be wary of this. Without panicking.

There is nothing to take away from Shaqiri. But a lot to contextualize. Because most of his statistics were achieved in a single match: the 6-1 victory in Winterthur on October 26, during which he scored twice (including a direct corner) and delivered three assists. In other words, in all of the nine other matches he played, the Basel player provided four assists.

We can further reduce the sample: among these four assists, one was given against Winterthur (5-0 victory) and another at Yverdon (4-1 victory), with the Nord-Vaudois reduced to ten after twenty minutes.

What you need to understand: the decisive impact is measured for the moment almost only in encounters where the opponent has become an expiatory victim.

To his credit, the last two assists were given in the two matches against Young Boys, both times from an indirect free kick.

Should we take Xherdan Shaqiri’s statistics seriously? Yes, because these are matches that count. But they must be qualified by the matches that Basel played recently: matches where Fabio Celestini’s men were extremely dominant, in tactical contexts which suited Shaqiri perfectly, with long phases of play set up in the opposing camp, where he can make his accuracy speak in small spaces.

There, it is better to have the ex-international than any other Super League player. It is in these moments that his impact is most striking in the Rhineland game. Celestini changed his approach at the start of the season for him, going from a 3-4-3 in which it was not easy to insert him to a 4-2-3-1 which puts him at the center of the project , with all the freedom he likes to benefit from.

With a dominant Basel, he can go to the right, to the left or go low to organize the game. This passes through him, and he gives him rhythm and inspiration. Unpredictable for the opponent who had imagined resisting FCB by being low and compact.

But when that was not the case, when Basel had much less control over the game (like at YB during the 3-2 defeat on October 30), Shaqiri existed less.

The tactical context speaks to him less: prolonged defensive sequences, many long transitions in one direction or the other, fewer balls touched near the goal. So, the pass that changes everything is no longer so obvious, since she must confront many pitfalls. And its performance indexes, so far, are suffering.

This is what Servette must imagine: making this match a meeting that does not make Shaqiri comfortable. Because, casually, it remains Xherdan Shaqiri. And the feat is still to be considered. Although it is much less likely if “XS” also has to run, defend and touch the ball away from the goal.