The king is dead! may he live Swiss? Europe is looking for a new monarch in football, one who occupies a much more dignified place than the one he had. Italy who abdicated the throne of the old continent in a pitiful way, who left his crown and scepter without saying goodbye sovereignly, at least with dignity.
Switzerland defeated Italy 2-0, current champion of the Euro Cup and which withdraws from the competition in a forceful way, with some Swiss players who simply gave lessons on how to play a Round of 16 match at Euro 2024, a fair reward in the Berlin Olympic Stadium.
It seems that Luciano Spalletti’s men are not exactly good at dealing with the red rivals they face in this Euro Cup: Albania scored the fastest goal in the history of the Euros against the ‘Azzurri’, Spain dominated territorially and the Swiss, simply, had no rival from the start of the match, or perhaps Italy had become stuck in the capital’s traffic in the Zoologischer Garten area.
Those of Murat Yakin They gave the impression of being in an intra-squad match, with no rival to overshadow in a duel of such importance at the Berlin Olympic Stadium. The concentration of those led by Murat Yakin maintained their figure and the dust barely reached elements like Akanji and Rodríguez, attentive in case the Italians decided to do damage in the center of the area.
Vargas, Rieder and Embolo did not take long to make a connection and disturb Donnaruma’s goal, perhaps the only one who seemed to be working overtime on the Italian side, the only one alert, although the most vulnerable to the Swiss attacks that were becoming much more fearsome.
In the end, an improved and reinforced version of Yaremchuk’s great goal in this Euro appeared to break the tranquility on the scoreboard at 37′, with a Remo Freuler who controlled the high ball inside the area and finished off ‘Gigi’ to open the throats of half of the Olympic Stadium.
The technical director Luciano Spalletti made changes with respect to what he presented in the Group Stage of Euro 2024, the problem was not that they did not work, but that the former Napoli player did not rectify in time… he did not even do so. In Calafiori’s absence, the starting 11 Italians put up virtually no resistance, not even when they had the opportunity to shake off Swiss discipline after the half-time break.
On the contrary, Rubén Vargas scored a goal from the dressing room at the start of the second half that practically robbed the rest of the match of any excitement, with Scamacca putting the ball against the post, Zacagni, the hero against Croatia, simply lined up for the anecdote and Switzerland managed to enter the round of the best eight without breaking a sweat against the king: long live Switzerland? In time…
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