If Italy are losing players to injury going into Friday’s crunch World Cup qualifier, then Switzerland are not faring any better, as Cedric Itten replaced Steven Zuber in the squad.
The showdown between the joint group leaders is on Friday evening at the Stadio Olimpico.
The Azzurri lost Ciro Immobile today, replacing him with Gianluca Scamacca due to a calf injury, after already seeing Lorenzo Pellegrini and Nicolò Zaniolo abandon the training ground at Coverciano.
Switzerland are not faring much better going into the showdown, because they too have a huge absentee list.
Granit Xhaka, Haris Seferovic, Nico Elvedi, Breel Embolo, Gregor Kobel, Zesiger, Christian Fassnacht and today Zuber have all pulled out.
Zuber left the camp today, replaced by Cedric Itten of Greuther Furth.
After the Italy match, Switzerland conclude the group phase by facing Bulgaria.
Switzerland squad: Kohn, Omlin, Sommer; Akanji, Comert, Imeri, Garcia, Mbabu, Rodriguez, Schär, Widmer; Aebischer, Frei, Freuler, Gavranovic, Okafor, Okoh; Shaqiri, Sow, Steffen, Vargas, Zakaria, Zeqiri
Wow, so both teams missing around 5 starters, the qualification will be decided by who has better backups, Italy B vs Switzerland B…
Thanks FI. Been trying to find something on the Swiss.
Glad that 2 of the absentees are Seferovic and Embolo.
We shouldn’t be hoping on the Swiss getting injuries. We are Italy, european champions, 4 times wc winners.
No excuses. Winning is an obligation.
We have not lost any key players. Honestly, the injuries instead have looked like upgrades to me.
As Kevin De Bruyne said, there are only a few teams in the world who have 24-25 top players in their squads, and Italy is one of them. Swiss and even Belgium don’t have that luxury.
Any one of their injuries is worth 2 of ours, so they’re in a much worse situation. Should be an easy win for Italy otherwise better not bother.
Milan Fan, maybe 10-15 years ago. Actually Italy isn`t complete and wide roster like France or England. Do you remember roster of Lippi national escpecially in attack? Del Piero, Inzaghj, Toni, Totti, Gilardino, Iaquinta, di Natale etc. One dropped out then entered the next one. Actually drop out Immobile and there is no one. Maybe Balottelli wouldy be ready? He always play good in national team.
Yes, let’s try Super Marion and prepare him for the world cup..