Alexander Frei and Valon Behrami have been declared fit to play in Switzerland’s second match of the 2010 football World Cup against Chile on Monday.
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Both players missed Wednesday’s stunning defeat of European champions Spain on Wednesday because they had failed to recover in time from injuries. Frei, Switzerland’s captain, sprained his ankle a week ago; Behrami has been struggling with a thigh muscle injury.
Less good news for the Swiss is that Philippe Senderos injured his right ankle against Spain and has been ruled out until at least the second round.
Despite his team’s excellent start, Swiss coach Ottmar Hitzfeld maintained on Saturday that Chile – ranked 18 in the world, six places above Switzerland – were favourites.
“[Chile] have impressed me. First of all in the qualifying rounds [where they finished above Argentina in the South American group],” he said.
“Against Honduras they were incredible and should have won 3-0 or 4-0 instead of 1-0. They’re solid and very fast.”
Bookmakers also make Chile slight favourites – although they also made Spain massive favourites.
Switzerland’s final group match is against Honduras on Friday. The top two teams advance to the next round.
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Switzerland thus finished at the top of their group on 21 points, ahead of Greece on 20, and will play in their fourth consecutive major tournament. The maths on Wednesday night was easy and the sell-out crowd in St Jakob’s Park stadium knew it: Switzerland were going into the match with a three point advantage…
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In an emotional news conference, the team’s captain and record scorer explained his bitter disappointment at being ruled out of the tournament after rupturing his left knee ligament in Switzerland’s opening 1-0 loss to the Czech Republic on Saturday. “A dream is destroyed for me,” Frei said. “But I told the team before the match…
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.