A time for Winning: Switzerland-Luxemburg

At 20:30 (European Time) tonight Switzerland will have to break down Luxemburg’s defence in order to gain the first three points of the qualifying campaign on Day Two of Group Two in an important game in Zurich.

It is evident, the opposition isn’t monstrously tenacious, yet the minnows in the football world are no longer amateur teams condemned to concede 10 goals. Cyprus-Italy, Macedonia-Scotland or even Liechtenstein-Portugal or Faer Oer – Italy from the European Championship qualifiers prove that these games can very well hide perverse tricks if one doesn’t tackle them well.

Yet Hitzfeld is no arrogant nor inexperienced coach, he is aware that the opposition has to be respected and that if this is not done, arrogance is paid for.

Hitzfeld will count on the return of Alexander Frei who will hope to repeat his feat when he scored 3 goals against the same team on his debut.
Following Greece’s 3-0 win away, Switzerland will have to score at least 3 goals and if possible, more.
What will matter in this game will be patience: the Luxembourg players will attempt to resist as long as possible and this can easily anger the opposition.

It is possible that we’ll see a 4-4-2 formation with a Vonlanthen-N’kufo attack, with Frei taking the place of one of the two in the second half. What really matters though is the defence, shaky against Israel, will Hitzfeld make some major changes?
This is a game that matters to test some aspects of the team before the games against Latvia and Greece, this last one will be THE game for Switzerland.