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The long-forgotten players’ duel Petkovic – Löw and 2 other stories about the game Switzerland – Germany in the Nations League.
On Sunday night from 8:45 pm, Switzerland and Germany take each other seriously in the Nations League. In the game at St. Jakob-Park, both teams are under pressure (SRF will broadcast live starting at 8:00 pm).
To get in the mood for the 52nd edition of Switzerland – Germany, we have selected 3 stories:
When the coaches ‘duel was still a players’ duel
Vladimir Petkovic and Joachim Löw are great coaches. Petkovic (57) has looked after the national team for 6 years, world champion coach Löw (60) has been responsible for the DFB-Elf for 14 years. However, the duel coach Petkovic vs. Low.
What many don’t know: As players, the two coaches met several times in the lower Swiss leagues in the 1990s. For example, in the promotion / relegation round in 1991/92, when Petkovic and Chur and Löw and Schaffhausen they fought for a Ph.D. at the NLA. Although they both failed promotion, Löw scored a goal in each of the games against Petkovic.
That’s how it was almost 30 years ago
Joachim Löw (right) in a match with Schaffhausen in 1991 (against Old Boys Basel).
Keystone
They know each other
There are no fewer than 10 Bundesliga professionals in the Swiss team, just one less than in the DFB-Elf. Several internal club duels are possible on Sunday.
Six Borussia Mönchengladbach players are in the two squads. Switzerland forms a quartet with Yann Sommer, Nico Elvedi, Michael Lang and Breel Embolo; with the Germans there is a duo at the beginning (Matthias Ginter and Florian Neuhaus). BVB sent a quartet for this game (Manuel Akanji; Nico Schulz, Julian Brandt, Emre Can).
Nati-Captain Granit Xhaka should meet up with goalkeeper Bernd Leno (both from Arsenal). And then there could even be a direct comparison between two Benfica forwards. Switzerland’s Haris Seferovic has been playing in Lisbon since 2017. Young German Luca Waldschmidt moved from Freiburg to Portugal in mid-August.
Germany and the curse of the Nations League
Since the successful group stage in autumn 2018, Switzerland have lost all of their last 3 Nations League matches (in the 2019 final against Portugal and England and most recently against Ukraine).
Germany is still completely without a Nations League victory. After two draws and two losses in the 2018/19 campaign, there was only one draw against Spain on Thursday. Will Löw’s team win the first time against the national team?
