COLOGNE — We are used to watching major tournaments to discover players with which we are unfamiliar, but how about entire teams?
Any follower of Italian football has been happy to chew your ear about the vibrancy of Thiago Motta’s Bologna, who won’t only play European football for the first time this century next season but will play in the Champions League proper for the first time ever.
This week brought disappointing news: Motta will lead Juventus next season. That is the fate of an overachiever like Bologna in elite football – while you are still being congratulated, the bigger boys (or in this case Old Lady) are plotting how to take you down.
This summer allows us to give Bologna their dues in Germany. They have provided nine players to Euro 2024 (it would have been 10 but for Lewis Ferguson’s injury withdrawal), level with Juventus and Liverpool and more than Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund.
Motta created a team of young, hungry, cosmopolitan footballers and knitted them into something exceptional.
In Cologne on Saturday, their fingerprints covered Switzerland’s win over Hungary.
On the right of the forward line, Dan Ndoye drifted into space and then drove directly and one-paced Hungarian defenders to create outright panic.
Ndoye was signed from FC Basel last summer for a fee of around £7m and must surely be worth at least double now.
Switzerland’s midfield is built around Granit Xhaka, rock by forename and nature. Xhaka’s redemption arc has completed its journey at club level, but it was never needed in a Swiss shirt.
His is a simple role that he does majestically, echoes of that famous Xavi quote: take the ball, pass the ball. There’s none of the unhinged mania of his Arsenal tackling to be seen.
Michel Aebischer, take a bow
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 15, 2024
A classy finish to double Switzerland's lead just before the break#Euro2024 | #HUNSUI pic.twitter.com/PQBRwDTHue
The direct beneficiary was Michel Aebischer, nominally a left wing-back but who spent most of the game drifting infield to outnumber Hungary in midfield and thus enjoy time and space on the ball.
Aebischer is another Bologna find, signed from Young Boys in 2022 for less than £3m. Xhaka’s other partner in central midfield? Remo Freuler, of Bologna.
Aebischer was the game’s best player, not only because he was so emphatically multifunctional but because he starred in the decisive moments.
For all the criticism of Hungary, who in the first half relied upon the Scotland playbook of simultaneously sitting deep and leaving huge spaces in front and behind of their defence, it was Aebischer who exploited it.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/yHxnuhi
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