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COLOGNE, Germany : Switzerland coach Murat Yakin found himself under pressure after a poor qualifying campaign for Euro 2024 but he got the big calls right on Saturday as his side beat Hungary 3-1 to open their Group A campaign in style.
Yakin sprung a surprise with his starting line-up in Cologne, handing inexperienced striker Kwadwo Duah his second cap and recalling Michel Aebischer on the left.
He also included injury-plagued Breel Embolo on the bench despite the striker having not played for the national team since the last-16 defeat by Portugal at the 2022 World Cup.
Duah repaid the faith shown in him with a 12th-minute opener, midfielder Aebischer was outstanding in a central midfield role, also scoring his first goal for Switzerland, and Embolo rounded off a great day for Yakin and the Swiss with a late clincher to kill off Hungary.
Yakin can also take credit for switching jet-heeled winger Dan Ndoye to the right where he caused havoc, especially in the first half dominated by the Swiss.
“I liken football to chess, and today we got our tactics right. We used this formation for a particular reason,” Yakin told reporters.
“We focused on making the most of our strengths, and we made our opponents’ lives very hard in the first half.”
London-born Duah proved a real handful with his power and pace and it means Yakin has a nice selection problem with Embolo, who played little over 100 minutes of football with Monaco last season after an ACL injury, impressive when he arrived off the bench as a substitute.
“(Duah) is a penalty-box player and we have had the situation with Breel (Embolo), but we knew we could rely on him,” Yakin said. “We knew we made the right decision to bring (Embolo). We knew he wasn’t available for the last two weeks of training but the decision to call him up was right.
“He makes us very calm in holding the ball up.”
Pre-match talk had been about the possibility of Xherdan Shaqiri getting the nod, but Aebischer took full advantage of his selection with a masterful display alongside Switzerland’s ice-cool captain and midfield rock Granit Xhaka.
“I had the freedom to find space for myself, which is how I like to play,” the Bologna player said.
Yakin said he knew Aebischer could be an important player.
“He makes great runs, with and without the ball,” Yakin said. “We had a very strong midfield on paper.”
Switzerland moved level on three points in Group A with hosts Germany who thrashed Scotland on Friday.
Scotland are next up for the Swiss and Xhaka expects them to be far better.
“We watched the Germany game. We were surprised by the performance of Scotland, they didn’t do much,” the Bayer Leverkusen Bundesliga winner said.
“But they have top players in top leagues and Wednesday will be a different game. We have achieved our first target of three points.”
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