Home » Sport » Today Switzerland-Italy. But didn’t Shaqiri and Widmer retire?
Today the Azzurri are playing a very complicated round of 16 match at Euro 2024 against the Swiss national team featuring two players who were lost and have now found each other again
The match against Scotland was something very close to a revival. A bit like when an old song comes on at the disco and the people, now tired and worn out, get up from the sofas to dance to the notes of a song that comes straight from their adolescence. So that shot from outside the area that slipped between Angus Gunn’s hand and the crossbar brought back a name that hadn’t been spoken for a long time. That of Xherdan Shaqiri from Gjilan, Kosovo. A footballer who many had now considered retired and who instead returned from the outskirts of the world of football to demonstrate that he still has something to say. And to give.
All the lives of Shaqiri
At almost 33 years old, Shaqiri has already lived an infinite number of different lives, some even in conflict with each other. He won a Champions League with Bayern Munich and one with Liverpool, yet his detractors are always ready to underline the marginal role played by the Swiss in those two European campaigns. He played with some of the most important clubs in the Old Continent, but without ever managing to really establish himself, to become an immovable starter. A paradox for someone who is considered the strongest Swiss player ever. This is also why the National has become his natural habitat, the ecosystem in which to hunt without having to worry about other predators.
The numbers tell a pretty clear story: 124 appearances for the Swiss national team (only Xhaka has been more present) and 32 goals scored. But another small record also helps to consecrate him. In the last 10 years, Shaqiri has scored in every major international tournament: a hat-trick against Honduras in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. An overhead kick in the round of 16 against Poland at Euro 2016. The winning goal against Serbia in the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Two goals against Turkey and one against Spain at Euro 2020. Another goal against Serbia in Qatar 2022. It’s a story that repeats itself with cyclical punctuality. And that increases the regrets for a career in which the development of the plot has not been consistent with its incipit.
Shaqiri, a footballer who resembles a boundary line
Shaqiri is a footballer who resembles a borderline. He was born in Kosovo, but when he was just one year old his parents moved to Switzerland, to Augst, a municipality which then, in 1992, did not even have 900 inhabitants. This is where legend mixes with reality. He lives in a house without heating. And he begins a very particular physical development. When he turns professional someone gives him the nickname “Magic Cube”, because he is 1.69 meters tall but he has the broad and defined physique of a bodybuilder. It is said that his thigh muscles have an even greater girth than Roberto Carlos’s and that his calves are even more developed than Barusso’s. What makes the difference, however, is his technique.
He started in his country’s team, then moved to Basel, where he won everything. Jupp Heynckes brought him to Bayern Munich, transforming him into a fundamental twelfth man for winning the treble. Guardiola’s arrival on the bench takes away space for him. Very. So he decides to go and find himself at Inter, which is usually not the ideal team for this type of operation. The club is going through a troubled moment. First he entrusted the bench to Mzzarri, then he recalled Roberto Mancini. Shaqiri is a meteor, perhaps even less so. Stoke City is a lifeline, the place that allows him to flourish again and take a place in Klopp’s Liverpool, at least for two seasons.
Silvan Widmer’s roller coaster
In August 2021, at just 29 years old, his star has already stopped shining. Xherdan moves to Lyon, but without leaving a trace. A year later he joined the Chicago Fire, in MLS, a tournament that in Europe is still considered the stage before retirement. Shaqiri ends up forgotten. Until the goal against Scotland. And it matters little if that match remains his only appearance so far in this European Championship. Because the winger who seemed to have retired is still one of the technical leaders of Murat Yakin’s team.
A bit of the same thing goes for Silvan Widmer, a more remote than immediate past as a protagonist in Udinese and a much more difficult present than expected in Mainz, thirteenth in the Bundesliga. An ankle ligament injury caused him to miss the last part of last season and the start of this one. From then on it was an up and down roller coaster. After returning in November he had to deal with the change of coach. And the new coach, Bo Henriksen, made him sit more on the bench than on the wing. In Germany Widmer was always a starter. At least until today, when an Italy in difficulty will have to deal with Switzerland’s talents that seemed to have stopped.
