Euro 2020: France stunned by a Swiss reawakening

Seemingly a whole lifetime of chaos before it ended on penalties, the night in Bucharest kicked to being from the penalty spot too. Or, at least, that was where the drama truly began. In the 52nd minute, Switzerland’s Steven Zuber tumbled down the left edge of the French box, fouled by right-back Benjamin Pavard. Three entire minutes and a VAR-check later, the referee pointed at the spot for the Swiss to have a chance to double their lead.

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Zuber, Switzerland’s tireless winger, had already flung in a cross that his compatriot Haris Seferovic had headed into the back of Hugo Lloris’s net, during what was a flawless first half for the underdogs. This was as much Clement Lenglet’s fault as it was coach Didier Deschamps’s, for fielding a Euro debutant and opting for a back three in a Round-of-16 match. So, Deschamps replaced Lenglet at half-time for the attacking option of Kingsley Coman, which meant Pavard (then playing as a wing back) had to return to the defence, where he would promptly concede a penalty.

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Thus began Switzerland’s finest hour in their long history of tournament football. But for a long while that hour was more excruciating than pleasant for the Swiss, that excruciation felt almost instantly – in the 54th minute when Ricardo Rodriguez made a mighty mess of his kick from the spot. The ominous miss would soon have a sheen of fatality to it. For, being on the verge of 2-0 down had jolted the world champions to life. Especially the lives of Karim Benzema and Paul Pogba.

Almost as if to make up for his long absence, the irrepressible Benzema was all but omnipresent for the next few minutes on the Bucharest field – finding himself in all the right places at the right times, often due to a through-ball from Pogba. But the first goal was due to Benzema’s own making. About a minute after Switzerland’s penalty-miss and in a moment of sheer wizardry, Benzema’s trailing left foot dragged the ball from behind his body and into the Swiss box, a self-assist that was converted into a goal when his left foot led again.

Benzema and France were both feeling like the champions they are, which led to their second goal just seconds after the first. A mesmerising four-way combination play released Antoine Griezmann towards Swiss goalie Yann Sommer, who deflected the ball only as far as Benzema’s head. So free was the Real Madrid striker that he nodded it into the roof of the net. It was all France from here on, their dominance controlled almost entirely by Pogba; and not just because of his curling screamer that tore into the top right of Switzerland’s goal in the 74th minute. In horror watched Granit Xhaka, Switzerland’s captain, having gone from the brink of leading 2-0 to trailing 1-3.

“We had played a perfect first half. Then we missed a penalty and conceded three goals. This was a slap in the face,” Xhaka would say later. This idiomatic slap forced Xhaka to will himself for a turnaround and he remembered the exact moment in that half when the resolve took grip. “I looked up at the stadium clock, it was a corner against us and I said to Yann (Sommer), ‘we have to wake up or this will be all over’.”

It was ostensibly more dramatic than that – Switzerland’s forthcoming turnaround was in fact akin to rising from the dead. Perhaps they too were inspired by Croatia’s comeback from the same deficit and within an even smaller window of time earlier in the day against Spain, making Monday the best day of this Euro so far by a fair mile. But whether the thriller in Copenhagen had any bearing on Bucharest or not, Swiss coach Vladimir Petkovic certainly did by making as many as four substitutions between the 73rd and the 79th minutes.

The first of those subs in Kevin Mbabu found his target, Seferovic’s forehead that is, from the right and now Switzerland trailed by a solitary goal with 10 minutes of regulation time remaining. But Petkovic’s even greater hunch was in swapping Xherdan Shaqiri for Mario Gavranovic – a man who was in the professional doldrums as recently as last year after Dinamo Zagreb didn’t renew his contract, leaving him club-less. But then Zagreb’s main striker Bruno Petkovic got injured and back came Gavranonic, his 17 goals in the following season making the other Petkovic in Swiss coach Vladimir sit up and take notice.

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Gavranovic nearly restored Petkovic’s faith in the 85th minute, tapping in a Rodriguez assist but only after having visibly floated off-side. He wouldn’t be denied the next time he touched the ball in the 90th minute, though, when Gavranovic found himself on the other end of a long and drilling pass from Xhaka. When the back of Lloris’s net shook, so did France’s collective confidence. Coman rattled the crossbar at the end of injury-time but this lack of confidence was evident through the two periods of extra-time, when Sommer easily swatted away attempts from Pavard and Olivier Giroud.

A match of such tumult was always going to culminate in a shoot-out – the first of this tournament. And, of course, it was going to come down to Kylian Mbappe, France’s best and hence final penalty-taker, whose freedom had been shackled by defender Nico Elvedi all evening. Now was a freer Mbappe’s turn, after nine successive penalties were converted, to make it 5-5 and push the tie into sudden death.

In spirit and situation, this was rather similar to when another No.10 in a blue jersey made the long walk from the half-line to keep his country alive in a major; only the stage was very different. When Roberto Baggio’s penalty flew over the crossbar, Brazil had won a World Cup. Sommer’s save of Mbappe only put his country in the quarter-finals, albeit their first in a major since 1954. But perhaps because of the nature of the opposition and the magnitude of the comeback, it felt just as consequential as Switzerland winning a trophy.

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