Preview: Romania vs Switzerland

Venue: Parc des Princes

Time: 9:30 IST

Switzerland are vying to be the first team to qualify for the knockout stages in this year’s championship and will face a spirited Romania, who almost held hosts , France, to a draw the last time round. And while the scoreline suggested that Romania were quite stout in defence, it was more due to France’s inability to take all their chances.

In Shaqiri, the Swiss boast of a world class forward, someone who could take the game away from the Romanians and with it could almost knock them out of the tournament. Also, the Swiss have been quite settled in defence and looked pretty assured in their last game. A similar, compact performance could mean a ticket to the last 16.

Romania were amazing on the counter attack, stretching France’s defence in the last game and will look to opt for a similar strategy, if they want to come out with anything from this fixture.

All is not well for captain Razvan Rat who finds himself out of form and is deemed to be unable to face the pace of Shaqiri by most experts. Steliano Filip could be used instead of Rat in order to deal with the Shaqiri threat.

Head to head

The head to head is pretty balanced as both teams have won 5 games and other two games have ended in draws.

In their most recent meeting, which was in May 2012, Romania came through, winning 1-0

Predicted Switzerland Line up– Sommer, Rodriguez, Djourou, Schar, Lichsteiner, Xhaka, Behrami, Shaqiri, Dzemaili, Mehmedi, Seferovic

Predicted Romania Line up- Tatarusanu, Sapunaru, Chirches, Grigore, Rat/Filip, Stanciu, Hoban, Pintilli, Popa, Stancu, And one

Match Prediction

Switzerland to win it 1-0