The big hope for the European Championship ticket: Shaq is back!

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It doesn’t seem relaxed and effortless like many others do when Xherdan Shaqiri (32) makes one or two statements. Especially towards journalists. It seems very simple… of course. And cool. He sits there and provides information in German and English. And even acts as an interpreter. Not only that we gave the majority of the tickets to our Kosovan friends, who hijacked St. Jakob Park within an hour. We even interpret for you. What good hosts we are!

In the Joggeli it will be the complete opposite of the mini-stadium Pancho Arena in the Hungarian pampas, when the first match point against Israel was carelessly thrown away with an unspeakable performance in the second half. “That wasn’t enough,” Shaq says clearly. He was the one who could watch the whole thing from the outside because he wasn’t deployed. In the same breath he says: “We have to stay on the ground. We are still little Switzerland. Not Germany or Brazil. It can sometimes happen that things don’t go that way. Nowadays there are no more small opponents. They don’t come here like they did ten years ago to go on holiday and lose 10-0. They also do video analysis.” Anyone who has seen Liechtenstein against Portugal can only agree with that.

63 scorer points in 117 games

That with honor. Yet everyone expects a victory against Kosovo. And as always, Shaq is THE beacon of hope. He has himself to blame, because Switzerland is still dependent on the attacking man who remained fit the week before FC Lugano. His club Chicago Fire missed the MLS play-offs again and so Shaqiri played his last match on October 22. “People know my qualities. It doesn’t matter how many races I have in my legs,” he brushes away rhythm concerns. His qualities are in numbers: 117 games, 29 goals, 34 assists. He scored a goal in more than half of the games. There are also many other second assists, which are often more important than the first.

Against Israel, Shaq languished on the bench for 96 minutes. And was angry. After the 1-1 draw, when asked, he simply said: “Ask the coach!” On Friday he announced that at the end of the match against Israel things did not go exactly as agreed with the coach before the start of the match. So with a replacement for Shaq. But then followed this unspeakable second half, in which Switzerland desperately tried to make it 1-0 as time expired. And Yakin didn’t want to do that with Shaqiri. But for example with Andi Zeqiri, who was a failure. That was a mistake.

Shaq’s phone is off!

Does not matter. Now Shaq can play his 118th international match, putting him on the same level as former record man Heinz Hermann, his former U21 coach at FCB. And the competition takes place in his hometown of Basel. And the team can secure the European Championship ticket. And it goes against Kosovo, the country of his birth, his parents, his ancestors. Lots of emotionality.

And even more ticket requests. “I gave my parents 40 tickets. Now after the training I will see what I can do for my colleagues. Then I turn off the cell phone. After all, I have a pretty important match on Saturday.”

Celebrate, yes, but not exuberantly

And a very special one. “But I want to ignore that. I also want to score goals in this match. I love scoring goals for Switzerland. And to rejoice about this. But I won’t celebrate it too much out of respect for Kosovo.”

That doesn’t matter to us. The most important thing is to cheer! Because, Shaq says: “We want to qualify. Then we all have more peace of mind. You too,” he tells the journalists. And adds: “Then you can also write more beautifully…” We can assure you: we would like to do that!

Source : Blick