After the 2-1 defeat against France in their opening match at the Cluj Arena, the Azzurrini face Switzerland in a match that is already decisive in order to avoid an early end to their European Championship journey. In fact, the Swiss, after winning 2-1 against Norway on the first day, lead Group D with three points in the company of France. Paolo Nicolato's boys will have to pay a lot of attention to their next opponents, who, after having achieved their fifth overall participation in this continental event by finishing Group 5 in second place behind only the Netherlands and obtaining the 'pass' as the second best, are aiming to enter the knockout phase of the tournament for the first time since the 2011 edition. At that time, thanks to players of the calibre of Sommer, Shaqiri, Frei and Xhaka, Switzerland achieved its best result in the competition: a historic second place behind Spain's Thiago Alcantara, De Gea and Azpilicueta, who won 2-0 in that edition's final. As far as the previous matches between Italy and Switzerland are concerned, the balance is in favour of the Azzurrini, who have remained unbeaten in 13 of the 14 matches against the Swiss players (6V, 7N), keeping the goal unbeaten on 10 occasions - in general, only against Luxembourg (11) has the Italian Under 21 national team collected more clean sheets considering all the competitions (10). In particular, referring only to the continental Under-21 competition, Italy and Switzerland have only played each other on one occasion, drawing with a clean sheet in Basel on the last day of the group stage of the 2002 edition.

 

 

Switzerland play fast, direct and on the counter

But how could Patrick Rahmen's team create some headaches for the Italian rearguard? The Swiss have already proved during the first match in this competition that they are a fearsome team, especially on the restart. In fact, Italy's opponents of the day were the ones who led the most counter-attacks (six) and kicked the most times on goal as a result of this type of action (five). Switzerland were also the only team to score a goal after a counter-attack (Dan Ndoye's momentary 1-1 goal against Norway). We are talking about a team that has already shown a preference for vertical play and the fast reversal of the front line, turning every ball recovery into a potentially dangerous action. Just like France, the Swiss team was the one able to score more direct vertical attacks during the first match of this European Championship (five). However, in addition to these positive aspects, in the first match, the Swiss showed some limits, especially in the phase of contesting and recovering the ball: proof of this is the worst percentage of duels won among the 16 teams involved in the first round of this European Championship (37%) and the third worst for successful contrasts (54%) behind only Croatia (50%) and Ukraine (46%). In short, physically they can suffer from Italy's physicality.

 

 

Rieder, Imeri and Amdouni, the 'enfants prodiges' of Swiss football

There are basically two players from whom Switzerland's fortunes in the goal-scoring zone depend, and those who the Italian rearguard will have to watch out for: midfielder Fabian Rieder and striker Zeki Amdouni. The class of 2002 from Young Boys, after a season that won him establish himself as the youngest midfielder with at least 10 goals and assists scored in the Swiss Super League 2022/23 (no less than 11, the result of seven goals and four assists) was also the Swiss player who created the most goal chances in the opening match of this European Championship against Norway (four). The young Basel centre-forward, who scored twice in the 2024 European Championship qualifying match against Romania in the senior national team's shirt to become the first player to score in four consecutive appearances for Switzerland since Blaise Nkufo in 2008, was also Switzerland's top scorer in European club competitions this season, his seven goals making him the top scorer in the UEFA Conference League 2022/23 (Arthur Cabral also scored seven). In addition, among the age group, the 2000-year-old was Switzerland's top scorer in the Under-21 qualifying for this continental competition (six goals in nine matches played). In addition to the two aforementioned players, the other player to keep an eye on in the Swiss ranks is undoubtedly Kastriot Imeri: in fact, the midfielder from the year 2000 (also owned by Young Boys) was one of the three players, along with Oleksii Kashchuk (Ukraine) and Sergio Gómez (Spain), who both scored and provided an assist on the first day of the group stage of this European Championship. Technique, freshness, speed and courage: this Switzerland lacks nothing.