The last place in the World Cup knockout stage came down, fittingly, to one of the group stage’s wildest matches.
Serbia and Switzerland let it all hang out in a game that featured swings on both the scoreboard and live table, but it’s the Swiss that prevailed, winning 3–2 to go through from Group G along with Brazil. The Seleção, which rotated its squad heavily for their group finale against Cameroon, wound up losing 1–0, but they still top the group on goal differential.
Serbia and Switzerland came in with some heated history. They met in the 2018 World Cup as well, and when Swiss stars Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri made an Albanian nationalist gesture after goals in the game, it provoked an inflammatory moment between Serbia and ethnic Albanians (which both players are) due to the geopolitical nature of the region.
The match did have a few emotional and contentious moments, but was largely centered on on-field action on both ends. Switzerland came out on fire, forcing a double save after an initial shot had been blocked all in the opening 20 seconds. Somehow, Serbia walked away unscathed from what would have been a crippling start considering the circumstances.
Serbia had a close call of its own 10 minutes in, when Andrija Živković rattled the post with a blast from distance.
The action hardly slowed from there, and less than 10 minutes later it was Shaqiri who delivered the opener. Serbia failed to clear the ball from its box, allowing Djibril Sow to lay the ball to his right, where Shaqiri’s deflected shot found the back of the net. His celebration, for what it’s worth, was unpolitical, the Chicago Fire man just pointing to the name on the back of his shirt.
Serbia pulled level at 1–1 in the 27th minute through its star forward, Aleksandar Mitrović. He powered home a header to even the score, and while Serbia was still in need of a second goal and a lead to be in position to go through, it at least negated Shaqiri’s opening strike to cut the work to be done in half.
Serbia completed the rapid turnaround by the 35th minute. Dušan Vlahović has been hampered by injury, but the Juventus star ran onto a slipped-through pass at the top of the Swiss box, then pounced when it was momentarily taken off his foot, instinctively turning a shot inside the far post to give Serbia a 2–1 lead and the edge for the place in the knockout stage.
That Serbian joy didn’t last long. The scales tilted back in Switzerland’s favor at the 44-minute mark, when Breel Embolo volleyed in from close range after Silvan Widmer’s cross, making it 2–2 on the day and putting Switzerland back in the driver’s seat for second place.
The action did not stop at halftime. Less than three minutes into the second half, Remo Freuler scored, the recipient of a beautiful flicked-on assist to the center of the box, where he fired home to give Switzerland a 3–2 lead. At that point, it meant Serbia needed two more goals to go through.
From there, the unsustainable pace of the drama cooled considerably, with Serbia deflated, Switzerland empowered and the last place in the knockout stage secured. The Swiss did have a window to win the group, when Cameroon scored on Brazil in stoppage time.
At that point, the Swiss could have gone top of the quartet with another goal, with Brazil’s goal-differential edge whittled down to one. Nevertheless, it’s Brazil that will face South Korea on one side of the bracket, while Switzerland has a date with Portugal.
Here were the lineups for both sides:
Full World Cup Squads
Serbia
GOALKEEPERS: Marko Dmitrović (Sevilla), Vanja Milinković-Savić (Torino), Predrag Rajković (Mallorca)
DEFENDERS: Srđan Babić (Almeria), Strahinja Eraković (Red Star Belgrade), Filip Mladenović (Legia Warsaw), Nikola Milenković (Fiorentina), Stefan Mitrović (Red Star Belgrade), Strahinja Pavlović (Salzburg), Miloš Veljković (Werder Bremen)
MIDFIELDERS: Marko Grujić (Porto), Nemanja Gudelj (Sevilla), Ivan Ilić (Hellas Verona), Filip Kostić (Juventus), Darko Lazović (Hellas Verona), Saša Lukić (Torino), Nemanja Maksimović (Getafe), Sergej Milinković-Savić (Lazio), Uroš Račić (Braga), Andrija Živković (PAOK Thessaloniki)
FORWARDS: Filip Đuričić (Sampdoria), Luka Jović (Fiorentina), Aleksandar Mitrović (Fulham), Nemanja Radonjić (Torino), Dušan Tadić (Ajax), Dušan Vlahović (Juventus)
Switzerland
GOALKEEPERS: Gregor Kobel (Borussia Dortmund), Philipp Köhn (Salzburg), Jonas Omlin (Montpellier), Yann Sommer (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
DEFENDERS: Manuel Akanji (Manchester City), Eray Cömert (Valencia), Nico Elvedi (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Ricardo Rodriguez (Torino), Fabian Schär (Newcastle), Silvan Widmer (Mainz)
MIDFIELDERS: Michel Aebischer (Bologna), Edimilson Fernandes (Mainz), Fabian Frei (Basel), Remo Freuler (Nottingham Forest), Ardon Jashari (Luzern), Fabian Rieder (Young Boys), Xherdan Shaqiri (Chicago Fire), Djibril Sow (Eintracht Frankfurt), Renato Steffen (Lugano), Granit Xhaka (Arsenal), Denis Zakaria (Chelsea)
