Our new record player: Granit Xhaka’s impressive national team songs

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1st international competition
June 4, 2011: England – Switzerland 2-2 (European Championship qualifying)
On his Nati debut (under coach Ottmar Hitzfeld), Xhaka drew. “Your boys are nice,” SonntagsBlick wrote about Xhaka and Shaqiri at the time. The only downside: Xhaka’s loss of ball leads to a penalty for England.

25th international match
May 30, 2014: Switzerland – Jamaica 1-0 (friendly match)
“It’s not his game, he fails in many things,” Blick writes about Xhaka, giving him a 3. The start of the day was already difficult. At 6.40 am all Nati players had to go to the doping control.

50th international match
November 13, 2016: Switzerland – Faroe Islands 2-0 (World Cup qualification)
Xhaka has been the boss on the pitch for a long time. In the match against the Faroe Islands, he is not the only Swiss who can celebrate his 50th appearance. Admir Mehmedi is also coming to his national team match number 50.

75th international match
June 5, 2019: Portugal – Switzerland 3-1 (Nations League)
An evening to quickly forget for Xhaka and Co. Thanks to three goals from Ronaldo, Portugal won 3-1. But Xhaka is putting in an appealing performance and is the lynchpin of the Swiss game.

100th international match
March 29, 2022: Switzerland – Kosovo 1:1 (friendly match)
This is definitely not how Xhaka imagined his anniversary game. When he was substituted by coach Murat Yakin in the 63rd minute, he was very angry and spent the rest of the match on the bench.

117 games: That’s how many times Granit Xhaka has appeared for the Swiss national football team.

Win rate of 53.0 percent: He won 62 of his 117 matches. He drew 22 times (18.8%) and lost 33 times (28.2%).

90 minutes: Xhaka is a full-time man. He played 84 times, was substituted 28 times, came on as a substitute 4 times and was sent off the field once with a yellow-red card.

165 hours: So far, Xhaka has played 9,926 minutes on the pitch with the national team. That corresponds to more than 165 hours non-stop.

14 goals: That’s how many times he has scored for the national team so far, plus twelve assists. In total he received 25 yellow cards, 1 yellow-red and 0 red.

20 games: That’s how many times he has appeared at major events (12 times at the World Cup and 8 times at the European Championships). There are also 32 test matches, 26 European Championship qualifiers, 22 World Cup qualifiers and 17 appearances in the Nations League.

October 10, 2016: That day he played as captain for the first time in the World Cup qualifier between Andorra and Switzerland (1:2). Since then he has captained the national team 43 times. His predecessor was Stephan Lichtsteiner.

68 times: Xhaka played most of his international matches under Vladimir Petkovic (pictured). He is followed by Ottmar Hitzfeld (30 times) and Murat Yakin (19 times so far).

6 games: England, Portugal

4 games: Andorra, Belgium, Iceland, Slovenia, Spain

3 games: Albania, Brazil, Germany, France, Ireland, Croatia, Romania

2 games: Argentina, Belarus, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Gibraltar, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Norway, Serbia, Czech Republic, USA, Wales

1 game: Bosnia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Finland, Ghana, Netherlands, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Cameroon, Qatar, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Panama, Peru, Poland, San Marino, Sweden, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Hungary, Cyprus

Heinz Hermann (65)
On December 16, 1987, he became the only Swiss national record player. He played his 81st international match at the away match in Israel. At the end of his career he played 118 international matches. A record that is now equaled by Granit Xhaka after almost 36 years. Not like Hermann in Israel, but after the cancellation of the match in Tel Aviv, now in St. Gallen in the home match against Belarus.

Severino Minelli (1909-1994)
For almost half a century, the Swiss national player from Zurich was the record player. In 1939 he replaced “Xam” Abegglen with his 69th appearance in the national team. Minelli played his last international match (his 80th) in 1943.

Max “Xam” Abegglen (1902-1970)
Neuchâtel and the Nati – that fits. He scored three goals in his first international match against the Netherlands in 1922. Abegglen’s appearance against France in 1926 was his 29th international match, which was enough to make him a record international player. In total, Abegglen made 68 international appearances.

Only seven Swiss have played at least 100 international matches so far. The special thing about it: three of them are still active. In addition to Xhaka, these are also Xherdan Shaqiri And Ricardo Rodriguez. The eighth player who could break into this elite circle is Haris Seferović (93 international matches) or Yann Sommer (84).

1. Heinz Hermann (1978–1991): 118 international matches
2. Granit Xhaka (since 2011): 117 international matches
3. Xherdan Shaqiri (since 2010): 116 international matches
4. Alain Geiger (1980–1996): 113 international matches
5. Ricardo Rodriguez (since 2011): 110 international matches
6. Stephen Lichtsteiner (2006–2019): 108 international matches
7. Stéphane Chapuisat (1989-2004): 103 international matches

Yes, Granit Xhaka will be the new record Swiss national player in the coming days, but he would be the real number 1 Kobi Kuhn. Because he was both a player (64 international matches) and a coach (73 international matches) for the Swiss national team, he has a total of 137 international matches to his name. More than any other Swiss.

117 international matches? The women can only laugh about it. Five (former) players have more commitment: Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic (151), Ramona Bachmann (138), Lara Dickenman (135), Martina Mozer (129) and Caroline Abbe (127). Also a captain of the national team Lia Walti is hot on the heels of Xhaka with her 114 international matches.

Source : Blick