GRANIT’S BIG SWISS ROLE..

MY dark horses are Switzerland. They rarely turn up at tournaments but I just have a little sneaky feeling about them.

They are one of the teams that you watch and say to yourself, ‘I didn’t know he was Swiss’.

They always do well in qualifying and always seem to make these major tournaments but it never quite clicks for them.

They matched both France and Spain at Euro 2020 and took them both to penalties

– beating the French.

Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka (inset) is playing as well as anybody in the Premier League this season and you can’t underestimate what that will do for their confidence.

Switzerland are just one of those teams capable of upsetting a few sides along the way. They are very hardworking and it will be a team that wins this World Cup – not a side made up of individuals.

Nobody would have predicted Croatia to make the final in Russia but when you break it down, they’re a proper team.

The same applies to Switzerland.