When the Swiss players realize that they have won, that they have conquered great France, they dance, hug each other, kiss. But it doesn’t take long before Captain Granit Xhaka picks up one of the cameras. He strokes his bleached hair, a big issue in recent weeks, suggests a pair of hairdressing scissors, then clenches his fist. It is a greeting to the Swiss homeland, and it is not a friendly one.
Switzerland and its national team is a complicated story. And even if it sounds loving when the Swiss speak of their “Nati”: the relationship is not particularly cordial. Rather critical, sometimes even spiteful. But the game on Monday evening is one that will go down in history: a terrific team performance, a strategy stubbornly pursued by coach Vladimir Petković that worked out in the end – and marked the Swiss national team’s first entry into a quarter-finals since 1954. Will the great reconciliation finally come after this coup, regardless of the Xhaka fist?
You have to go back a few weeks, even a few years, to find an answer to that question.
At the beginning of the European Championship, the national team sent a lot of small characters that were not well received in Switzerland
First of all, there are the cars. When the players moved into the EM preparatory camp in May, the Ferraris and Lamborghinis they drove in were particularly noticeable – an occasion for criticism in a country where you don’t like to see ostentation despite the high density of rich people. Then it became known that Arsenal player Xhaka, who recently became a father for the second time, had a tattoo with his daughter’s name shortly before his departure for the first European Championship match – despite the isolation announcement from his coach.
And finally the thing with the hairstyles: the team had a Swiss hairdresser flown in to Rome. That came out because Xhaka and Manuel Akanji were suddenly blonde – only to deliver a miserable performance against Italy on the pitch. In combination with the repeatedly expressed and somehow astonishing self-confidence of the Swiss captain when it comes to this European Championship: many small signs that did not go down well at home. The NZZ wrote of the “arrogant aloofness of the young millionaires”, the Look described the incidents as “embarrassing” and judged: “This aloofness, it just doesn’t fit in with Switzerland.”
The decisive moment: Kylian Mbappé shoots, Yann Sommer flies – and Switzerland wins on penalties against France in the European Championship round of 16.
(Photo: Daniel Mihailescu / dpa)
It alludes to the real problem many Swiss have with their national team: How much Switzerland is ultimately in granite Xhaka, Xherdan Shaqiri, Breel Embolo or Haris Seferović? And how Swiss is the trainer, who was born in Sarajevo, actually? These questions broke out openly during the 2018 World Cup. Xhaka and Shaquiri, both children of Kosovar parents, cheered their goals against Serbia with the double-headed eagle, the Albanian flag symbol.
There was great excitement at the time about the gesture that the Swiss commentator dubbed “stupid and stupid”, the players received fines from Fifa and even apologized publicly a few months later. But the toxic debate in Switzerland has been launched: the open question is whether Secondos, as the children of immigrants are called in the country, would play with the appropriate passion for Switzerland. A politician says that the two of them have to “decide whether they are Swiss or Albanians”.
The Swiss Football Association even asked whether dual nationalities should not be abolished altogether. And when Xherdan Shaqiri expresses himself a little awkwardly in his apology and speaks of those who “might have watched the game in the mountains”, the anger really boils: a Kosovar Albanian who mocks the Swiss as mountain people?
The team cannot let go of the question of identity after reaching the quarter-finals
Since then, Vladimir Petković’s team has been under special, sometimes merciless, observation – even though they are considered the “golden generation” from a sporting point of view, although the players do almost all of their interviews in fluent Swiss German. Even the accent of coach Petković sometimes sounds more like Ticino Italian than Serbo-Croatian.
Nonetheless, the topic is always which players sing along with the anthem and which not. When Xherdan Shaqiri was the only one to put his hand on his heart at the European Championship match against Wales while the Swiss psalm was playing, Swiss sports journalists saw it as a “strong sign”. And on Tuesday, the morning after the historic victory, a radio presenter saw the whole team’s hand on the heart as the hidden reason for the successful game. The complicated question of identity: you won’t let go of this team even after their great performance.
The current national team is a pretty good reflection of Swiss society. Almost 40 percent of people aged 15 and over who live in Switzerland have a migration background; more than a third of this group has a Swiss passport. Maybe yesterday evening will turn things around and change the view of this country on its unpredictable, loudmouthed, but in view of its composition, quite normal national team. At least the affectionate nickname already exists.