Switzerland made a winning start to UEFA EURO 2016 but the ten men of Albania gave them an almighty scare in the teams’ first Group A outing.
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His side ended on the losing side as Basel’s Fabian Schar’s header on the fifth minute, separated the two sides, after prevailing from Valmir Berishia’s howler which allowed the Swiss defender to head home and break the deadlock in this fixture.
Schar capitalised on poor goalkeeping by Etrit Berisha to nod in from Xherdan Shaqiri’s corner.
Berisha went on to redeem himself with a number of good saves but the early damage could not be repaired, although it was not for the lack of effort as the well-supported Albanians made light of their numerical disadvantage with a gutsy display.
New Arsenal signing Granit Xhaka is hoping to reach the quarter-finals with Switzerland at the European Championships, as he gears up to play Albania tomorrow.
Albania, featuring in their first major tournament, will take plenty of positives from the performance, but they must now translate that into points.
Saturday’s confrontation is hard to play down and last month the brothers, whose parents migrated to Switzerland from the largely ethnically Albanian Kosovo in 1989 when it was still a part of Yugoslavia, could be found holding court at a table within the Fifa Museum in Zurich.
Albania’s frustration was summed up by midfielder Taulant Xhaka, who threw his water bottle to the ground in disgust after being substituted just after the hour. We retreated and speculated too much.
Euro 2016 debutants Albania were given a tough lesson in the realities of big tournaments in their opening match defeat to Switzerland on Saturday.
No Albanian player scored more than one goal during the qualifying campaign.
In just 90 minutes of football against Albania, he had already proven that he was one of the best midfielders in the Premier League.
“One son for Switzerland and one for Albania – it’s the flawless reflection of our family”.
“We didn’t have a fortunate game with the key incidents”, said De Biasi.
“Our first priority is definitely to make it through the group stage”. “I think we really felt the pressure from a mental perspective”.
60 – Granit Xhaka had 60 touches in the first half, more than any other player in Albania v Switzerland.
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Before Cana’s red card, Armando Sadiku ran clear but he was unable to beat Yann Sommer.
