Stadium 974 in Doha, on Friday, will be on a date with a fierce battle between defense and attack, which carries a political flavor, when Switzerland meets Serbia in the third and last round of Group G competitions for the Qatar World Cup.
And between a defensively coherent Swiss team that eliminated world champions France from the final price of the European Cup last summer and then caused Italy to miss the world finals for the second time in a row, and another Serbian that includes players such as Dusan Tadic, Alexander Mitrovic and Dusan Vlahovic, Friday’s confrontation will be fiery in the full sense of the word. .
This confrontation will be a repeat of what happened in 2018, when Switzerland, Serbia and Brazil were also in one group.
At that time, after the opening draw with Brazil 1-1, Switzerland caused Serbia to exit from the group stage by defeating it in the second round 2-1 with the goals of Granit Xhaka and Gerdan Shaqiri, who provoked the Serbs after they celebrated their approach to the fans, placing their hands on their chests oppositely, in a drawing of the “double eagle” badge. Black is the symbol of Albania.
Shakiri was born in 1991 in Kosovo, the former Albanian-majority Serbian province, and left with his family when he was one year old, while Chaka was born in Switzerland in 1992 to a family from Kosovo, the Muslim-majority province north of Albania, which embarked on a campaign to secede from Serbia in 1998. .
The Belgrade regime violently suppressed armed secession attempts, prompting NATO to intervene in March 2018 and launch raids on the Serbian capital, forcing its forces to withdraw from Kosovo after 78 days.
Since 2008, the region has become independent after a conflict that claimed 13,000 lives.
Although Kosovo has become an independent state recognized by more than a hundred countries (not including Serbia and five countries of the European Union, Russia and China), it is still emotionally attached to the “Albanian nation”.
But coach Yakin stressed after the loss to Brazil that “we will focus only on football, both teams. It will be an interesting match. I don’t care about anything else.”
Shakiri missed the loss against Brazil due to a minor injury, and Yakin reassured that the American Chicago Fire winger would return in time for the Serbia match.
extra tension
And what increases the size of the “political” tension in Friday’s match is that Serbs raised a flag In the dressing room, they incorporated a map of Kosovo into it, prompting FIFA to open disciplinary proceedings against the Serbian Federation.
The photo, taken in the Serbian national team’s dressing room before facing Brazil, shows a map of Kosovo printed on a piece of white cloth hung on pegs, and stamped with the Serbian flag reading “There will be no surrender.”
Publication of the photo led to an official protest from Kosovo, with Sports Minister Hjrullah Çeku denouncing the “shameful photos” that convey “messages of hate, xenophobia and genocide”.
“We expect concrete actions from FIFA, of which Kosovo is a full member,” the sports minister added.
The Football Association of Kosovo announced that it had submitted a complaint to FIFA against Serbia’s “aggressive action” at the start of its matches in the world football tournament, denouncing “such an act of hostility has no place in sporting events, even inside the edifice where the largest football event in the world takes place.”