Goodness, what a thriller it became when Switzerland with difficulty and barely made it to a historic quarterfinal in the European Championship.
Switzerland was almost written off when the chance arose. Substitute Xhemaili put his foot in after two of seven added minutes – a goal that made the arena in Geneva completely explode with joy.
We have prepared for if we would be behind 0-1 or something like that. We had our papers, we changed the papers, but in the end it became right thanks to these two, says national team captain Pia Sundhage to SVT and pointed to her assistant national team captains Lilie Persson and Anders Johansson.
It means so incredibly much for the whole country, says Lilie Persson about Switzerland's advancement.
Norway also advances
A little before the equalizer, in the 79th minute, Natalia Kuikka had given the red and white home crowd a real cold shower when she coolly scored Finland's 1-0 on a penalty.
The conditions before kickoff were simple. In practice, this was a round of 16, a completely decisive meeting about which of the two teams would get to play on in the European Championship tournament.
But Switzerland had a small trump card – in the event of a draw, the host nation would advance along with group winner Norway and Finland would be eliminated due to a worse goal difference.
Can meet the world champion
As long as it was 0-0, every minute that passed meant that Switzerland came closer to a quarterfinal spot. But also that a potential Finnish goal could have even more devastating consequences for the home nation.
After Kuikka's leading goal in the 79th minute, Switzerland began a desperate push in search of an equalizing goal.
It paid off in the end.
Switzerland will face the winner of group B in the quarterfinals. That is, probably the reigning world champions from Spain, otherwise Italy. The teams meet on Friday evening and a draw is enough for Spain to secure first place.
In parallel with Switzerland's European Championship advancement, a reserve-heavy Norway won 4-3 against group bottom team Iceland in Thun.
