World Cup 2022: Euro Champs Head to St. Jakob

Switzerland vs Italy

Italy are the Group C leaders in World Cup 2022 with 10 points from four games and they’ll face second-placed Switzerland who have six points in the table, but also two games in hand.

They will meet on Sunday night at St. Jakob Park in Basel and we expect to see numerous World Cup 2022 highlights in this contest.

Indeed, there is so much to play for in this pivotal fixture.

Talking Points

Italy's Leonardo Bonucci eyeing a World Cup 2022 qualifying win — Italy’s Leonardo Bonucci reacts after he scores his penalty during the shoot-out

The Azzurri are unbeaten in 35 competitive games and they know if that they avoid defeat against the Swiss they will surpass the all-time record held by Spain, which was set from 2007 to 2009 – a period when they became European champions themselves.

The Euro 2020 heroes returned to battle and they got back toWorld Cup qualifying action on Thursday night with a 1-1 draw against Bulgaria.

Federico Chiesa put the Azzurri ahead but Bulgaria scored the equaliser in Florence when Atanas Iliev struck against the run of play five minutes before the break – which was the first goal Italy have conceded in their World Cup qualifying campaign to date.

Meanwhile, Switzerland warmed up with a 2-1 friendly win over Greece thanks to Steven Zuber and Ruben Vargas goals.

This has the potential to be a much edgier contest though.

Despite being held at home last night, Italy start as clear favourites and should also have their skipper back.

Against the Bulgarians, coach Roberto Mancini picked almost the same lineup as the Euro 2020 Final with Alessandro Florenzi and Francesco Acerbi among the new faces.

Captain Giorgio Chiellini was rested so he will be able to start against Switzerland.

Mancini insists Italy must not just stay at the same level that won the summer showpiece tournament. He remarked that they need to get even better and this will be a decent test against the Swiss.

Switzerland really impressed me once they got going in the championships, including knocking out world champions France and coming within a whisker of seeing off Spain with 10 men.

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History

These are two nations who fared well at Euro 2020, although one of them did extremely well.

Italy have had a distinctive upper hand in their meetings, the first of which was a 2-2 friendly draw in 1911.

Overall, the Italians have triumphed 29 times with 22 draws and Swiss had seven wins.

In fairness, most of those games have been friendly encounters.

In fact, the first time they played competitively was in 1954 when Switzerland beat the Italians twice in the space of a week, including a group play-off in a World Cup staged on home turf.

The most recent meeting came less than three months ago when Italy emerged 3-0 victors in their Euro 2020 group encounter in which Manuel Locatelli and Ciro Immobile scored two and one respectively.

Switzerland remain without a win in the last nine meetings with Italy since May 1993 when, then managed by Roy Hodgson, the Swiss won a World Cup qualifier in Berne.