By Switzerland just concluded their session of continuous string of injured players as Diego Benaglio, Philippe Senderos, Fabian Schaer and Xherdan Shaqiri have recovered from their respective injuries. All of them are key players in the squad of Ottmar Hitzfeld who will be the man in charge of guiding Switzerland through their 2014 World Cup campaign.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries but fortunately they got injured at the right time and not too close to the World Cup,” Hitzfeld told reporters.
After 31 years of coaching different clubs around the world and a number of accolades which includes: 2 Champions League titles and 7 Bundesliga coronations, it has been officially announced that Hitzfeld is going to step down from coaching and retire after the 2014 World Cup.
Switzerland has never managed to get past the quarterfinal stages of any World Cup and this upcoming one will see them facing off against France, Ecuador and Honduras in the group stages.
France are huge favorites on concluding at the top of the group but the 2nd spot will be highly contested between the remaining nations and the side of Hitzfeld will have their work cut out for them if they want to progress any further.
Hitzfeld displayed his intentions of at least reaching the round of 16 in this World Cup which will kick off in less than 2 weeks.
“I hope we can be a positive surprise and at least get to the round of 16 and take it from there. We will be playing in different climatic zones, so we have to play intelligently. Hitzfeld admitted.
They recently played an international friendly match against Jamaica and a lonely goal from Josip Drmic gave the Swiss the victory, Hitzfeld is hoping they can continue getting positive results for their upcoming matches.