KANSAS CITY, Missouri, July 12 (Reuters) – Switzerland’s \u2060World Cup quarter-final exit may still be rankling coach Murat Yakin, but the Swiss \u2060have judged their run to the last eight a success. <\/p>\n
Yakin, the Swiss Football \u200cAssociation president Peter Knaebeland national team director Pierluigi Tami hailed their progress to the quarters, where they lost 3-1 to Argentina in Kansas City on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Switzerland were down to 10 men not long after equalising in the second half \u200bwhen striker Breel Embolo was sent off, picking up \u2060his second caution of the game after \u2060a VAR review for simulation.<\/p>\n
It was a decision that Yakin continued to rail against on Sunday, \u2060insisting \u200chis side faced more than just the world champions on the pitch.<\/p>\n
“We played not only against a great Argentina side and the world champions, but also against 70,000 \u2060Argentine fans, the referee, and VAR. That is simply too \u200bmuch. Naturally, the elimination hurts,” \u200che told a press conference.<\/p>\n
But the Swiss coach said good foundations had been laid \u2060down for future \u200btournaments.<\/p>\n
“We are far from finished. We have a good mix of players. We have consistently integrated young players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yakin also wants to continue in charge.<\/p>\n
“I still love being a coach and am proud to be the \u2060head coach of the Swiss national team. I am truly \u200benthusiastic about working with this squad. There is absolutely no thought in my mind of taking a different path.”<\/p>\n
The 51-year-old, who won 49 caps for Switzerland, has coached the team for the last \u2060five years and has two more years on his contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to remain ambitious in upcoming campaigns as well. At the same time, the Nations League in particular gives us the opportunity to give young players a chance.”<\/p>\n
Switzerland next compete in the second tier of the Nations League, \u200bhaving been relegated in 2024.<\/p>\n
They face North Macedonia, Scotland and Slovenia \u2060over the next few months.<\/p>\n
Knaebel and Tami said Switzerland had much to be proud of in \u200breaching the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
“It is difficult to take stock so soon \u200cafter the match,\u201d said Tami. \u201cWe were so close \u200bto a great result. We must be proud of how our team represented us in such a major tournament.”<\/p>\n
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Atlanta; Editing by Toby Davis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Missouri, July 12 (Reuters) – Switzerland’s \u2060World Cup quarter-final exit may still be rankling coach Murat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[10732,41,17,13703],"class_list":["post-102344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-fifa","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116908736192691410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}