agencies
doha
Switzerland manager Murat Yakin said on Wednesday that the current national team is the “best that ever existed” and that the country is determined to advance to the World Cup finals in Qatar.
Switzerland, who face Cameroon in their first match on Thursday, have advanced from the group stage in three of their last four tournaments, missing out only in 2010.
Yakin, who took over as coach after Switzerland reached the Euro 2020 quarterfinals last year, predicted that the country would have its best World Cup performance in Qatar, where they will also face Brazil and Serbia in Group G.
“I think that we are seeing the best Swiss national team that has ever existed,” Yakin told a news conference. “We have improved a lot and now we want to write history. We are not only here to participate. We are here to win and we want to get to the next round.”
Captain Granit Xhaka, the Arsenal midfielder, was hesitant to describe the squad in the same way, saying it would not be fair to the 2018 Swiss team that was eliminated by Sweden in the round of 16.
He said, however, the Swiss team now was younger than it was four years ago and maybe “a little more hungry” to go far in the tournament.
