One question for each 2026 World Cup team. Was Xherdan Shaqiri the greatest international soccer player of all time, or are Switzerland just fine without him?
Would you love me in a Bentley? Would you love me on a $95 bus from downtown Boston to Gillette Stadium? Footnote is asking 48 questions, and they’re all about the 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup. This post is part of our Group B preview. You can also read previews of Canada, Qatar, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Was Xherdan Shaqiri the greatest international soccer player of all time, or are Switzerland just fine without him?
For the past 10 years, Switzerland have been one of the most consistent high-level national teams.
Like some sort of intricate mechanism in which a series of cogs and gears all interlock to move a larger part in a choreographed manner, Switzerland have been a finely tuned machine.1Alas, there isn’t a common item associated with Switzerland that fits this description. The same core of players show up every tournament, and consistently play organized, tightly wound soccer. At every tournament they are hard to break down, they move the ball well in possession and break quickly when needed.
And at every tournament the expensive bespoke wristwatch strikes midnight when they are faced with one of the big teams in the knockout rounds.2They did manage round of 16 wins against France and then Italy in the last two Euros, but those were followed immediately by losses to Spain and England, so the point still stands somewhat.
This summer’s World Cup will be a real test of the value of that experience. Almost all of the key players from Switzerland’s group stage consistency will play a major role in 2026: Manuel Akanji and Ricardo Rodriguez on the backline, Granit Xhaka at the center of the pitch, and Breel Embolo up front.
Gregor Kobel will replace Yann Sommer in goal for the first time at a major tournament, but even Kobel has been making sporadic national team appearances for the better part of a decade. Wingers Rubén Vargas and Noah Okafor are also relatively young, but like Kobel they broke through at young enough ages that they feel like they have been part of the group for a long time.
Switzerland very much still looked like the same clockwork contraption over the course of qualifying, cruising to first place in their group with four wins, two draws, and no losses — albeit aided by an inexplicable year of bad form from Sweden.
The biggest change from the Switzerland of the mid-2010s to now is the international retirement of Xherdan Shaqiri, possibly the greatest international soccer player of all time.
Starting around 2013, there were two Shaqiris: The one who played for Bayern Munich, Stoke, and Liverpool, was a solid attacking player, producing magic for smaller teams and then admirably filling a more limited role for the bigger sides.
The one who played for Switzerland, meanwhile, created sublime, game-changing goals on the biggest stages. Shaqiri seemed born for international soccer, activating a new level whenever called upon to break a game open for the Swiss in an international tournament.
Here’s an extremely low-res YouTube video of every goal he scored at the European Championships:
Shaqiri retired from international soccer shortly after Euro 2024, and there isn’t an obvious candidate on the current Swiss roster who can do the kinds of things he did. It’s possible this summer we see a Switzerland team that is talented and competent, but can’t really score goals.
On the other hand, Shaqiri’s club career did not necessarily imply that he would be able to score incredible World Cup goals on a regular basis. It’s possible, maybe likely, that Shaqiri’s international exploits had as much to do with the way that Switzerland set up to empower him as they did with his innate knack for major moments. Perhaps the new era of Switzerland will lean less on an individual star, and more on a unit of competent attackers who can share the responsibility for creating chances and scoring goals.
Switzerland are likely to be good at this World Cup, and they are a safe bet to win Group B.
But whether or not they can reach a level beyond where they have been will depend on whether or not they can once again build a Shaqiri stage, and whether or not anyone in this squad is ready to step onto it.
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