Tikteknu: today's summary clip in sport, 21.2 (Sport1)
It is doubtful that anyone believed that a football match between Switzerland and Belarus could cause real political concerns.
But about a month before the two will meet at the start of the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign - in house 9 where Israel also plays - this is exactly the situation.
Belarus is a protégé of Russia, and as such it has been helping it all the time since the brutal and bloody invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Despite this, its involvement is unofficial, even though dictator Alexander Lukashenko threatened a few days ago "to fight Ukraine if it enters our territory".
Unlike the teams and national teams from Russia that were kicked out by UEFA, the Belarusians still participate - but are not allowed to play on the territory of the country. This happened, for example, last summer Hapoel Beer Sheva hosted Dynamo Minsk at Turner Stadium and hosted them for the return match at Turner Stadium one more time.
The Belarus national team was asked to choose an alternative home for the Euro 2024 qualifiers and chose Novi Sad in Serbia - at least for the first match.
The choice is natural: Serbia is one of the few countries in Europe that supports Vladimir Putin, largely because of a sense of shared destiny.
The Kosovo War, NATO, Putin, Ukraine, Belarus, the Swiss national team, Euro 2024 qualifiers (Photo: GettyImages, David Brauchli)
Behind Putin's slogans about war in "Neo-Nazi Ukraine", many interests are hidden, one of which is a fight with NATO. And NATO is the hatred of the Serbs after the massive bombings in Operation Allied Force in 1999.
So Russia vs. NATO and Serbia vs. NATO, and it's clear why Belarus chose to host in Novi Sad.
So why are they so afraid in Switzerland?
The dilapidated state of the grass at the Karajorja Stadium is worrying, but the real story is Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka.
In recent years, the football teams of Serbia and Switzerland have become bitter rivals.
Everything flared up in the 2018 World Cup, when the two teams met in the group stage and the great star Shakiri scored a winning goal 1:2 and celebrated with the movement of the eagle symbol - the national symbol of Albania and hence also of the majority of the residents of Kosovo, who are Albanians.
In Serbia, they saw this as a national insult, much more than losing a football match.
Shaqiri was born in Kosovo and his family fled to Switzerland from the terror of the Serbian rioters.
He was only a year old and doesn't remember a thing, but grew up on the stories and many years later got a little revenge on the lawn.
Granit Xhaka was born in Basel, but grew up on a similar folklore at home and in the same World Cup he lit up the division together with Shaqiri.
The Albanian media celebrated then with the headlines "Kosovo - Serbia 1:2".
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The Swiss association said: "Because of the special history we have with Serbia, we were very surprised that we had to play there."
Shaqiri in 2018 (Photo: GettyImages, PressFocus/MB Media)
Xhaka and Shaqiri have become the hatred of football fans in Serbia and towards the 2022 World Cup, the goddess of luck arranged another meeting between Switzerland and Serbia in the group stage.
This time things turned to the fact that the competition was about qualifying for the round of 16 and everyone tried to lower the flames for it.
Shaqiri scored again, Switzerland won again and the game got heated again when Xhaka was the one involved in incidents with the Serbs throughout the game.
When UEFA announced that Belarus would host on the 25th in Novi Sad, Switzerland came under pressure. "Because of the special history we have with Serbia, we were very surprised that we had to play there," said the association's spokesman, Adrian Arnold, "the decision to hold the game there did not include us.
No one consulted the Swiss Confederation, our voice was not heard.
But we accept it and we will reach Novi Sad."
In the Swiss media they said that the leaders of the national team intend to shorten their stay in Serbia as much as possible - so much so that it is possible that even the final training session will take place in Switzerland and not in the Karadjorja Stadium.
And they will require heavy security and guarantees for the safety of the players - very rare requests in terms of the Swiss team.
Xhaka (right) confronts the players of the Serbian national team in the last World Cup (Photo: GettyImages, Matthew Ashton - AMA)
With the national teams of Belarus, Kosovo and Israel, when in Switzerland footballers of Kosovar origin play, House T (where Romania and Andorra will also play) in the Euro 2024 qualifiers is one of the most political houses in a European qualifying campaign.
On June 19, Belarus will host Kosovo, for example - and everyone understands that this game will not be able to take place in Belarus, but not in Serbia either.
In such a house there are many question marks.
A war in Israel could always cause Alon Hazan and his players to host in a neutral country - after all, there are precedents for this, and no one can guarantee that Belarus will not be suspended in the shadow of threats to officially join the war.
Just two weeks ago, human rights organizations in Switzerland demanded that Belarus be thrown out of the Euro qualifiers just like Russia: "Why does UEFA say that they are committed to human rights and do not keep their word?
A red card should be issued to the enemies of human rights."
So if anyone was wondering how a football match between the national teams of Belarus and Switzerland could suddenly become political and maybe even tense, they better follow the developments in Novi Sad on March 25.
The stands will be empty, but it will still be a game on Serbian soil.
The Kosovo national team will not play there, but Kosovar footballers will.
sport
world football
Tags
Swiss national team
Belarus national team
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