Swiss see off Serbia in feisty five-goal thriller
Switzerland’S world Cup journey continues after they came from behind to beat Serbia 3-2 in a crazy five goal thriller which was marred by crowd chanting from Serbian fans.
The victory for Murat Yakin’s side confirmed their passage into the last 16 for the third successive world Cup — and they will face Portugal in tuesday, whilst Serbia depart bottom of Group G.
The Swiss came into their final encounter in second place, knowing that a draw would be enough to proceed. Serbia, who sat bottom of the group with one point, knew only a win would do.
After dragan Stojkovic’s Serbia dictated the early flow of the game, it was the Swiss that struck the first blow of the match to take the lead twenty minutes in.
Ricardo Rodriguez’s low cross was cleared only as far as djibril Sow, the midfielder immediately teed up Xherdan Shaqiri who, via a deflection, fired past Vanja Milinkovic-Savic for his 26th goal for his country to silence the Serbian supporters.
But it didn’t take long for Serbia to respond, and they levelled seven minutes later through talisman aleksandar Mitrovic.
Dusan Tadic was afforded too much time on the Switzerland right-hand side and was able to execute a superb cross onto the head of the oncoming Mitrovic, who delicately flicked the ball past goalkeeper Gregor Kobel into the side netting. the game was suddenly turned on its head as Serbia took the lead in the 35th minute.
A loose ball after a mistake from Shaqiri fell to the feet of Juventus striker dusan Vlahovic, and the forward repaid the faith shown in him by his manager as he spun and fired into the bottom corner to deservedly put Serbia ahead.
This topsy-turvy encounter took another twist as Switzerland found themselves back on level terms on the stroke of half-time.
The Swiss were able to work the ball out to the right-hand side, full back Silvan widmer was afforded too much time before firing across the box to the on-rushing Breel embolo, who tapped in for his second of the tournament.
The drama didn’t stop there as three minutes after the break, the Swiss were back in front.
Remo Freuler was able to get onto ruben Vargas’ deft flick before sending Milinkovic-Savic the wrong way.
There were calls for a Serbian penalty midway through the second-half after Mitrovic believed he was fouled by Fabian Schar, but referee Fernando rapallini waived away all appeals, to the disbelief of the Serbian bench.
In the 77 minute, a Pa announcement came on around the Stadium 974, warning fans about the chanting of discriminatory and political language from within the stands, this was after a crowd of stewards proceeded towards a group of fans early into the second half.
It came shortly after the Serbian bench was sanctioned following their protests to Mitrovic not being awarded the penalty.
This was the first incident of such crowd behaviour to happen so far this world Cup, which up until now had been praised for the well-behaved nature behaviour of fans, after previous concerns before the tournament.
The Pa announcement was in response to apparent monkey chants that could be heard from certain section of the stands.
This incident had certainly
soured the hot- contested affair between these two sides.
Granit Xhaka was inevitably involved in a fiery clash with Serbian players as the game ticked into its dying stages. Despite late pressure, Switzerland hung on.
SERBIA (3-4-1-2): V Milinkovic-Savic 6.5; Milenkovic 5, Veljkovic 5 (Gudelj 55, 6), Pavlovic 5.5; Zivkovic 6 (Radonjic 78), Lukic 6, S Milinkovic-Savic 6 (Maksimovic 67), Kostic 6.5; Tadic 7 (Djuricic 78); Vlahovic 7 (Jovic 55), Mitrovic 7. Scorers: Mitrovic 26, Vlahovic 35. Booked: Milinkovic-Savic, Pavlovic, Mitrovic, Milenkovic, Gudelj, Lukic. Manager: Murat Yakin 7. SWITZERLAND (4-2-3-1): Kobel 5.5; Widmer 6, Schar 6, Akanji 5, Rodriguez; Freuler 6, Xhaka 6; SHAQIRI 7.5 (Zakaria 69, 6), Sow (Fernandes 68, 6), Vargas 5.5 (Fassnacht 83); Embolo 6.5 (Okafor 90+6).
Scorers: Shaqiri 20, Embolo 44, Freuler 48. Booked: Widmer, Vargas, Schar, Xhaka. Manager: Dragan Stojkovic 6.
Referee: Fernando Rapallini (Argentina) 6. Attendance: 41,378.