{"id":80388,"date":"2026-06-09T21:50:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/80388\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T21:50:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T21:50:52","slug":"switzerlands-sow-not-underestimating-canada-bosnia-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/80388\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland’s Sow not underestimating Canada, Bosnia, Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Switzerland enter the World Cup as the Group B favourites, but they remain adamant that people should not take Canada, Qatar or Bosnia and Herzegovina lightly. <\/p>\n

Last month Premier League star Granit Xhaka said that it is \u201cnot an easy group\u201d<\/a>. On Tuesday his fellow Swiss midfielder Djibril Sow brushed off a question<\/a> about if Group B is \u201cthe group of life\u201d as the easiest group rather than \u201cthe group of death\u201d, often attributed to the hardest-looking group to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think so,\u201d Sow said when asked if people are underestimating Switzerland\u2019s opponents. \u201cIt\u2019s a World Cup. There\u2019s some countries now on holidays, so I think every country here deserves to be here, and it\u2019s going to be tough matches. I think there\u2019s going to be a lot of surprises in this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Reading: Marsch wants to make Canada proud, give nation a World Cup experience \u2018they won\u2019t forget\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Murat Yakin\u2019s side has high expectations for themselves at this tournament, but don\u2019t want to get too far ahead of themselves. <\/p>\n

Switzerland have reached the knockout rounds at four of the last five World Cups, but advanced further than that in none of them. There is one extra step between them and an improbable trophy with the expanded tournament and new round of 32, but their target is to win a knockout game for the first time since the tournament added a group stage in 1950.<\/p>\n

They previously reached the quarterfinals in 1934 and 1938 but in those days the tournament started at the round of 16 and every game was a knockout game through to the final.<\/p>\n

Switzerland has some veteran power with the likes of Xhaka, Manuel Akanji and Ricardo Rodriguez, but there are also eight players aged 25 or under, looking to set the foundation for the future of the team as well. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have a really balanced team with experienced players, with players who already played World Cups, and with hungry young players who will play their first big tournament or World Cup,\u201d Sow added. \u201cI think the balance is really good, and now it\u2019s up to us players to find the right motivation to also not have too much pressure, because also that can be negative, but I\u2019m not worried about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada will play Switzerland in the third game of the group stage, a potential group-defining match at Vancouver\u2019s BC Place on June 24. Before that Switzerland plays Qatar and Bosnia in California, on June 13 and 18, respectively. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Switzerland enter the World Cup as the Group B favourites, but they remain adamant that people should not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[563,3786,36992,1202,17,13703],"class_list":["post-80388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-canada","tag-canmnt","tag-djibril-sow","tag-news","tag-switzerland","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116722367319175291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80388","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=80388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}