One reason every team at the World Cup can win

Switzerland: Flexibility

The Swiss have one of the most intriguing rosters out of the 32 national teams that qualified for the tournament. It’s not as stacked with talent as some of the more traditional power countries like Brazil and Germany, but there’s at least one or two players who could take over the tournament and have a massive impact on how the matches ultimately end.

The most important part about how Switzerland play is in their flexibility, both positionally and tactically. They have two excellent full-backs in Stephan Lichtsteiner and Ricardo Rodriguez that can, and have, played as traditional full-backs and as wing-backs. This allows their manager, Vladimir Petkovic, the options of playing a back three or back four, which allows for more specific game plans and tactical transitions during matches.

Granit Xhaka is the main man in the midfield, controlling the pace of play and breaking up attacks. His up-and-down season with Arsenal gives insight into his strengths and weaknesses, which can only help Petkovic when building the team around him in the middle.

Switzerland have an abundance of pace and acceleration in their attack, with Breel Embolo, Josip Drmic and Xherdan Shaqiri all possessing the ability to simply run past slower defenders. This allows the Swiss to play on the counter-attack, which they like to do often. The positional flexibility that players like Shaqiri give, however, ensures they can completely change depending on the matchup.

Switzerland will need to both execute multiple game plans for different opponents and use their talent to the maximum to make a deep run in the World Cup. Petkovic has been the head coach since 2014, so he knows how to use his players to get the best out of them.