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Doha (AFP) – Switzerland has the opportunity to reach the quarter-finals for the first time since 1954, when it faces Portugal on Tuesday in the Qatar 2022 World Cup, but its coach, Murat Yakin, stressed that he never thinks regarding the issue of making history.
Switzerland has not reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup since it hosted the finals 68 years ago, but at that time it was qualifying directly from the group stage to the quarter-finals without going through the price of the final due to the presence of four groups of four teams each (16 in total).
Switzerland’s journey ended at the time, at the hands of Austria, with a 5-7 loss, following which it was also unable to achieve any victory in the elimination round by leaving the final price in 1994, 2006, 2014 and 2018.
But Yakin believes that the idea of facing Portugal should in itself be sufficient motivation for his team to try to reach the quarter-finals, saying, Monday, on the eve of the scheduled meeting in Lusail, “We realize that we are entering the match with a well-prepared and mature team.”
He continued, “The ability to write history will not be decisive for us. We know our opponents and we have shown that we are able to defeat them. Then (following winning) we may be able to talk regarding history … No one cares anymore regarding what happened in the past.”
And he stated that his entire team is available for the match once morest Cristiano Ronaldo and his companions, without giving any hints regarding his basic squad, saying only, “We are ready. We have a complete team and the players who were absent have returned.”
Switzerland beat Portugal 1-0 in Geneva during the European Nations League in June, a week following losing 0-4 in Lisbon, but Yakin saw that matches of this kind were of no importance because “six months have passed since the last confrontation, and this is a very long period.” In football, we don’t know who plays with them, who plays central defence. If we focus too much on the opponent, we lose focus on ourselves.”
© 2022 AFP
