Distressed Serbia face Swiss in winner takes all

A distressed and underperforming Serbia side will take on Switzerland in their final group match at Stadium 974 on Friday knowing that anything but a win would see them off the tournament.

Serbia was recognised as one of the dark horses of the 2022 World Cup by many before the tournament as they had an amazing World Cup qualifying campaign, finishing ahead of Portugal. But they failed to carry that form as they lost their opening game 2-0 to Brazil, before losing a two-goal advantage against Cameroon to draw 3-3.

Now they sit at the bottom of the table with just one point in their two matches behind Cameroon, also have one point but are ahead on goal difference.

Serbia now need a win to be still in the race for the knockouts if Cameroon fail to beat Brazil. If Cameroon comes out victorious in the other match of the group, Serbia would need to score at least two goals more than Cameroon to qualify.

Should Serbia fail to win, it would see Switzerland take second place behind Brazil to move onto the round of 16 if the Selecaos avoid defeat in their match against Cameroon.

As Switzerland just need one point to secure their qualification, it might tempt coach Murat Yakin to take a cautious step into the game against Serbia by putting Granit Xhaka and Remo Freuler in front of his back-four to take out the speed of the opposition’s attack spearheaded by Aleksandar Mitrovic.

But he said that he will not be doing that.

“I like positive outcomes. As head coach, you can’t send your team out to play for a draw. We want to try to win the game and we hope we have the quality to do so,” the Swiss coach said.

Yakin is likely to start Monaco forward Breel Embolo, who scored the winner against Cameroon for them. Djibril Sow might be given the role of supporting Embolo through the middle as seen in the game against Brazil.

Noah Okafor is Switzerland’s only player who will be missing the action due to injury, though he has not been a regular starter for them.

Serbia on the other hand, have no injury concerns and coach Dragan Stojkovic will have his side at full strength leading into the action. Serbia will see Aleksandar Mitrovic in the striking position, with Lazio star Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and skipper Dusan Tadic supplying the crosses for him to finish.

The two sides met each other in the 2018 World Cup, where the Swiss made an amazing comeback from behind to win it 2-1 with Xherdan Shaqiri scoring the winning goal in the 90th minute.