For Murat Yakin, a lot of things are going against Switzerland at the moment, Manuel Akanji is annoyed by the many fouls near the penalty area: Switzerland's reaction to the 2-0 defeat in Serbia.
Murat Yakin (national coach): "A lot of things are going against us at the moment. We dominate and then exactly what the Serbs were hoping for happens. We lose a bit of patience, commit fouls and they exploit this cleverly. We also had a few attacking moves ourselves, but they weren't precise and decisive enough to take the lead. Serbia were cleverer today and defended better than us. Our plan was to dominate the game. To fall behind like that just before half-time is of course annoying. The Serbs can continue to concentrate on defending and we run and run."
Manuel Akanji: "We started the game very well. After that, an incredible number of mistakes crept in. We lost a lot of tackles and committed far too many fouls around our own penalty area. That naturally made it difficult against the Serbs, who we knew were a physically strong team. The own goal to make it 0:1 was stupid, but only a logical consequence of these fouls near the penalty area. You can't concede so many set-pieces against a team like that. That wasn't enough, we have to be cleverer. When Mitrovic made it 2-0, I wanted to prevent him from shooting through my legs into the near corner. It was one of the worst pitches I've ever played on, but that can't be an excuse. We showed in the first 20 minutes that we can still do it."
Gregor Kobel: "We started relatively well, then the Serbs stood very well, completely closed down Granit's (Xhaka - ed.) six-man position and it was difficult for us on this pitch. It certainly wasn't a good game from us, we have to do better. When we went 2-0 up, some people probably thought the ball was going out. Manu (Akanji - editor's note) made absolutely no mistake; he covered the short corner, just as we goalkeepers like to do. The shot was great and I saw it very late."
Fabian Rieder: "We tried everything to create chances and created a few through two or three set-pieces and the penalty. We lacked a bit of a good final decision. If we had solved some situations more cleverly, we would have had even more chances. Serbia did well, but we could have done better. We lacked efficiency in both boxes. Zero points after three games is obviously not our standard."
SDA
