Having been dealt a 1-0 defeat by lower ranked Austria, Switzerland have started Euro 2017 off on entirely the wrong foot, the team unable to find a way around a firm Austria defence and powerless to stop their rampant attacks.

Swiss struggle with Austrian defence

Struggling to find quite the right words to say, Switzerland stalwart, Lara Dickenmann was left frustrated, as her entire team was, by their opening match loss the team unable to find the right link-up play to really trouble Manuela Zinsberger,  

The first-half was hard. It’s hard to figure out what it was; our build-up was a little bit I don’t know, insecure? Broken? With some players, it’s not their favourite thing to do and they had a hard time with the pressure of the Austria team and then we got scored on early which was not the plan.

Know for their defending, Austria routinely shifted back into a defensive shape when not on the prowl for a second, the Swiss magician left frustrated by their tactics, her teammates panicked as they lost their discipline in search of an equaliser,

They played 5-4-1 and we didn’t have any space; no space, no depth. We weren’t as patient as we should have been because we were down 1-0 so we tried to get in front of the goal faster than we should have, we should have kept to our game plan, trying to play 2 vs 1. It was hard – they know how to play 5-4-1 – it’s not so much fun to play soccer like that but it worked for them.

Strong finish

Completely off of the pace during the first-half, the Swiss came out brighter after the break, a half-time chat enough to remind La Nati to stick to the game plan,

We said that we have to be more aggressive and be more present, to get the first and second balls, try to win the 1 vs 1’s and duals because we almost lost all of them – I felt like we lost almost all of them.

Down to ten after Caroline Abbé had been shown a straight red in the second-half the disadvantage finally seemed to spur them into life, and they finshed the game at their strongest, Zinsberger’s clean-sheet preserved but not for the want of the Swiss trying,

It’s hard and then we lost our defender in the 60th minute and then we were down to ten and then had our best period in the game but obviously it’s very hard to score when you’re down a man.

A loss but a learning experience, the players will take what they learned into the next game, of that Dickenmann is sure,

We always use our experience from all of the games, we lost but we also learned something; we always try to make the best of it.” 

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About the author
Sophie Lawson
Neutral football fan travelling around Europe, covering matches and bothering footballers for interviews