{"id":21876,"date":"2025-11-16T12:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=21876"},"modified":"2025-11-16T12:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:12:13","slug":"switzerland-dominates-sweden-eyes-2026-world-cup-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=21876","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland Dominates Sweden, Eyes 2026 World Cup Spot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Switzerland took a significant step towards qualifying for the 2026 World Cup after a resounding 4-1 victory over Sweden on Saturday. The match, held at the Geneva stadium, saw the Swiss dominate their opponents in this Group B European qualifier.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breel Embolo<\/strong> opened the scoring for Switzerland, followed by a <strong>Granit Xhaka<\/strong> penalty. <strong>Dan Ndoye<\/strong> and <strong>Johan Manzambi<\/strong> added further goals, solidifying Switzerland&#8217;s commanding lead. Sweden&#8217;s lone goal came from <strong>Benjamin Nygren<\/strong>, but it proved to be a mere consolation.<\/p>\n<p>This victory propels Switzerland to the top of Group B with 13 points, three ahead of Kosovo. Kosovo secured their own crucial win against Slovenia, putting pressure on the Swiss to secure their qualification. Switzerland now holds a significant goal difference advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Even a defeat to Kosovo by a margin of up to five goals in their final match on Tuesday may still be enough to secure direct qualification to the World Cup. <em>This gives Switzerland a comfortable cushion as they approach the final stage of the qualifiers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Kosovo is guaranteed at least a spot in the play-offs. Slovenia&#8217;s hopes have been dashed, and Sweden remains at the bottom of the group with only one point. The Swiss team is now in a very strong position to represent their nation at the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?cat=40\">More Sports articles on DZWatch<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\">DZWatch &#8211; Your News Portal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Switzerland took a significant step towards qualifying for the 2026 World Cup after a resounding 4-1 victory over Sweden on Saturday. The match, held at the Geneva stadium, saw the Swiss dominate their opponents in this Group B European qualifier.<\/p>\n<p>Breel Embolo opened the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21878,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21876\/revisions\/21878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}