Switzerland vs Italy live updates: Euro 2024 match team news ...

The teams are out in the Berlin sunshine for their warm-ups.

Switzerland head coach Murat Yakin had already been out, leading oles with the Swiss supporters.

If he was under pressure after indifferent form heading into Euro 2024, everything seems well ahead of kick-off this afternoon.

Only one change in personnel then for Switzerland, which was enforced through suspension. They look set to stick with their 3-4-3 base formation, although Widmer’s absence may mean a shuffle of the midfield order.

It is a lively front three that can break at pace, but also gets caught offside a lot. It will be interesting to see Spalletti’s plan to deal with that.

This is Switzerland without Xherdan Shaqiri in the starting XI of a major tournament knockout for the first time since the 2006 World Cup (a round of 16 defeat to Ukraine).

Yakin has always complimented his individual quality but has found good tactical solutions without Shaqiri for most of this tournament.

They’ve been more dynamic up-front, while Embolo’s return has been particularly important.

And here is the starting XI named by Luciano Spalletti, to take on Switzerland:

It’s a load of changes here from the 1-1 draw with Croatia that rounded off Italy’s group stage, with the likes of Jorginho, Di Lorenzo, Pellegrini, Raspadori and Retegui stepping back down to the bench and Bologna’s Riccardo Calafiori suspended.

Cue the teams here in Berlin. Here is the confirmed Switzerland starting XI from Murat Yakin to take on Italy:

With Silvan Widmer suspended, it’s Vargas who comes into the XI after the 1-1 draw with Germany that completed their group stage.

It is a scorcher of a day in Berlin. As usual, we'll have all the big updates from Switzerland vs Italy with our reporters in the stadium and contributors watching on from Germany and elsewhere.

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We’ve not got long until the two teams are confirmed ahead of kick-off here in Berlin.

We’ll bring you those XIs — and analysis of them — as soon as we get them. Don’t go anywhere.

As for Italy, their suspension comes in the form of Riccardo Calafiori. Roma’s Gianluca Mancini is a likely replacement.

Bryan Cristante, goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, Nicolo Fagioli and Lorenzo Pellegrini are the Italy players heading into this game with one booking. Those tallies are reset after the quarter-finals.

It’s more about suspensions than injuries for both Switzerland and Italy this afternoon.

Switzerland will be without Mainz defender Silvan Widmer, who is serving a one-game suspension for collecting two bookings. Stuttgart’s Leonidas Stergiou is a primary candidate to come in on the right side of Murat Yakin’s midfield.

Remo Freuler, Dan Ndoye, Ricardo Rodriguez, Vincent Sierro and Granit Xhaka all go into today’s round of 16 tie on one booking. A second today will see them miss any potential quarter-final.

Berlin’s Olympiastadion is gleaming in the summer sun. What a setting for the start to these Euro 2024 knockout stages.

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Here is Portugal midfielder Bernardo Silva, speaking to The Athletic on Wednesday after his team — already confirmed as winners of Group F — lost 2-0 to Georgia in their group finale:

???? “It’s just about getting through the group. And then after that, from my experience — not just as a player but as a fan — what happened in the group stage doesn’t mean that much.

“Sometimes, the teams that play better in the group stages are not the (eventual) winners. You need to be stable in the knockout stages. You need to have a bit of luck in these tournaments as well.”

In some ways, Euro 2024 starts now with the first of the last-16 ties.

That sounds contradictory when we are already 36 games into a 51-game tournament and the joys of watching three or four matches in a single day give way to rest days with none at all.

But this is where the stakes are raised, the pressure is ramped up and one slip — a goalkeeping error, one player suffering a loss of nerve in a penalty shootout — can prove decisive.

GO FURTHER

Forget everything you’ve seen at Euro 2024 – the real tournament starts now

This season, Xherdan Shaqiri has scored just two goals in 12 appearances for Chicago Fire and has been maddeningly inconsistent.

He was a surprise selection for Switzerland’s second Euro2024 Group A game against Scotland — a 1-1 draw in Cologne — but rewarded manager Murat Yakin after 26 minutes with a goal that only he could score. Steve Clarke said:

???? “If that chance falls to any other player in the Swiss team, that’s not a goal. So that tells you what I think of Shaqiri.”

It wasn’t just a brilliant goal: it was a historic one.

Shaqiri is one of seven MLS players at Euro 2024 and became the first MLS player to score in a European Championship game.

Shaqiri laughed rather bashfully when it was pointed out he is in a select club of four players to score at six or more World Cups/European Championships.

A harsh assessment of his club career is that Shaqiri hasn’t been a relevant force since 2018; the last time he was close to a regular for Liverpool in the Premier League.

But he’s always there for Switzerland, even if he doesn’t always start.

There are 70,000 expected today. Italy and Switzerland have an allocation of 7,000 each. It remains to be seen who is in the majority.

Italy were outnumbered considerably in the stands against Albania and Croatia.

For context, I’m standing behind three guys in Mexico shirts. Wrong tournament, lads!

It's very hot in Berlin — around 30 degrees, but in a city like this it feels much hotter.

By way of comparison (and obviously it varies across the country) the early games in the tournament were played in roughly 20 degrees and the games were open and free-flowing.

As the weather got warmer in the second week, the games became a bit more cautious. The goals per round: 33, 27, 20. I don’t think that is a coincidence.

The temperature is due to drop from Monday with more rain across the country, which might be a good thing.

It’s looking like topping 30C in Berlin, and that will make for a tasty temperature for Switzerland vs Italy — evening if kick-off is due come the early evening in Germany.

So will that mean drinks breaks for the two sides? It all depends on the temperature pitchside.

Cooling breaks can be brought in for any UEFA competition, should high temperatures be expected.

A UEFA match delegate will take the temperature with a thermometer — at head-height at least one metre inside the pitch — at the end of the teams’ warm-ups.

If that temperature exceeds 35C, then we’re on for drinks breaks.

Either way, it’s going to be a warm one.

What about Switzerland’s Euro 2024 looking so far then? Here are their numbers that give a few clues:

When Granit Xhaka signed for Arsenal in 2016, he looked like he had been moulded precisely to fit the role of a deep-lying playmaker.

The single midfield pivot with the stylish left foot, he could have been lab-grown it looked so natural for him.

But not many imagined he could, or would, change genres so extensively throughout his career. The last two years have proven that theory incorrect.

Despite a revival at Arsenal, Xhaka was allowed to move to Bayer Leverkusen last summer in a deal that could rise to €25million (£21.2m; $27m), where he became metronomic, with possession flowing through him.

Switzerland look to Xhaka to progress the ball. The last time he did not start an international game was November 2021 and, given that time has packed in evolution and adaptation, this tournament sees Xhaka at the most well-rounded version of himself we have seen.

GO FURTHER

The Radar – The Athletic’s Euro 2024 scouting guide

Both Italy and Switzerland arrived in Berlin yesterday to take in the stadium and hold their pre-match press conferences.

The two squads are about two hours away from making the journey back to the venue ahead of the opening knockout match at Euro 2024.