In a thrilling floodlit match, Switzerland beat Bulgaria 4:0 and secured direct World Cup entry despite being in a worse starting position beforehand.
Switzerland coach Murat Yakin brought three new personnel into the starting eleven after the 1-1 draw against Italy. Frei, Mbabu and Gavranovic replaced Steffen, Rodriguez and Akanji. The Dortmund player was absent due to yellow card suspension.
Shaqiri, who played his 100th international match on Monday evening, was honoured in the Swiss kit before the match. The home side started the match in a dominant manner and, after a short period of feeling out the game, began their mission to qualify for the World Cup with a lot of pressure. Vargas from Augsburg repeatedly created danger on the left side, but the Swiss asset failed to beat Karadzhov on each occasion (11th, 17th). The Nati created further great chances against the deep standing Bulgarians, but lacked the final precision in finishing or in the last pass. This was also the case with Gavranovic’s finish, which was too unplaced from eleven metres (24.)
The post prevents the lead
After the period of urgency, the home side found it a little more difficult until just before the interval whistle, and even after twelve corner kicks to date, they failed to create any goal-scoring opportunities worth mentioning. After a firework of corners, from which the visitors could only free themselves very late, RB Salzburg striker Okafor failed with a wonderful flick at the right inner post, from where the ball rolled parallel to the goal line out of the danger zone (45.) Thus it went into the break with 0:0 – as in the parallel game of the Italians in Northern Ireland. For the Swiss, a goal would mean direct qualification for the World Cup.
Okafor does it with brains – Vargas with violence
Switzerland started the second half with a clear plan: to take the lead – preferably as quickly as possible. After the home side had the visitors pinned down in their own penalty area, Okafor scored from Shaqiri’s lobbed cross to give them a 1-0 lead (48th). The eye-catching Vargas even extended the lead a short time later, slotting the ball under the crossbar for 2-0 (57th).
All good things come in threes: Fürth’s Itten with the 3:0
After Gavranovic’s goal for the supposed 3:0 was disallowed by the VAR due to an offside (66.), the Swiss really went for it. Joker Itten scored only two minutes after his substitution – but like Gavranovic, he was criminally offside (70.). But when the Fürth attacker scored the next goal, neither the assistant nor the VAR had anything to criticise – Itten scored with his head and scored the important third goal (72.). Now the Italians needed two goals in the long-distance duel to snatch direct World Cup entry from Switzerland.
The home side, with the celebrating crowd behind them, left no stone unturned until the end and, thanks to Freuler’s late goal (90.+1), celebrated a well-deserved 4-0 home victory, which also meant victory in Group C, as Italy did not go beyond a 0-0 draw against Northern Ireland. The Nati thus qualify directly for the World Cup despite their worse starting position before kick-off and send reigning European champions Italy into the play-offs as runners-up.