EURO 2024: Highlights of Switzerland's victory in the round of 16

Italy team becomes former champion

The 2-0 defeat was a true reflection of the performance of coach Luciano Spalletti’s team in this match. It was a weak and exhausted play that made the Italian team completely inferior to the Swiss team.

The goals conceded by the Italian team all came from the right wing where center back Gianluca Mancini and full back Giovanni Di Lorenzo did not cover each other well. In addition, the central midfielders did not drop back in time to support and create conditions for the Swiss team's strikers to have space to finish.

With this defeat, the Italian team officially became the former champion of the tournament. Meanwhile, the Swiss team repeated the achievement of reaching the quarterfinals at Euro 2020 and awaits the opponent in the match between the English team and the Slovakian team.

Exactly like a "Swiss watch"

When mentioning Switzerland, people often think of high-precision watches. And in today's match, the Swiss team also operated smoothly and precisely like those watches.

Coach Murat Yakin's team organized a synchronous pressing on the Italian side of the field, making the opponent confused in how to deploy the game.

In addition, the Swiss players calmly and accurately executed the passes even when surrounded by the opponent. Granit Xhaka and his teammates easily brought the ball to the 16m50 area of ​​the Italian team and 2 goals were the inevitable result after those rhythmic coordination.

With these impressive performances, the Swiss team will be a big challenge for the big teams in this year's tournament.

Granit Xhaka - the heart of the Swiss team

Although he did not score directly, midfielder Granit Xhaka played an extremely important role in the Swiss team's play. Most of the Swiss team's attacks went through the former Arsenal midfielder. With his excellent passing ability, Granit Xhaka helped the Swiss team's play become more flexible and open.

In the last match, the midfielder who is playing for Bayer Leverkusen Club had 101 touches of the ball, 94 accurate passes (96% rate), of which 3 passes opened up favorable opportunities for teammates to score.

It can be said that Granit Xhaka is the "flywheel" that provides energy for the "Swiss watches" to operate smoothly in this year's tournament.