That misses the Nati for the quarterfinal ticket

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The Swiss national team is ahead of Slovenia, Norway, Kazakhstan and Slovakia in the World Cup and is the only team besides the USA with an impeccable record and 12 points after four games.

And yet Patrick Fischer’s team has not yet mathematically secured their sixth quarter-final appearance at a World Cup in a row.

On Friday night, however, the starting position improved again as Slovakia came up against Kazakhstan (3:4 nP) and their hotshot Andrei Schutov in goal.

Now only one team can wrestle the quarter-final place from the Swiss: Norway. Is that a realistic scenario? No not at all. But who would have thought that the Kazakhs would annoy the Slovaks?

If Norway loses to the Czech Republic, the Nati is further

Norway (4 points so far) could theoretically take nine points from their three remaining games to overtake Switzerland if they go empty-handed in today’s remaining games against Canada, tomorrow against the Czech Republic and Tuesday against Latvia.

However, the Scandinavians have an extremely nutritious program: today at noon after the match of the Norwegians against the Czech Republic (11.20 am), the math games could have been superfluous from the Swiss point of view. And even if the Vikings win, they still have to conquer Canada and Slovakia.

If the Nati don’t want to depend on other results, they need not one but two points from the current perspective as they could still jump the sheet in a constellation where they would be tied with Norway and Czech Republic.

For the Swiss, however, it is mainly about securing the best possible ranking in the remaining games. As a group winner you would probably face Germany. World champions, Olympic champions and co-hosts Finland in Tampere beckon in second place, the USA or Sweden in third or fourth place. The quarter-finals will therefore not be a guaranteed success anyway.

Source : Blick