A new cycle begins for the Swiss national team this week with two Nations League matches. There are various goals and three cornerstones in the two years leading up to the 2026 World Cup.
However, national team director Pierluigi Tami does not want to measure the Swiss team by results alone in the coming days, weeks and months. On the day of the first meeting after the European Championship and the retirements of Xherdan Shaqiri, Yann Sommer and Fabian Schär, the Ticino native also spoke about the playing aspect in Basel: "We want to confirm the football we showed at the European Championship."
The expectations and demands on the Swiss team are high after the strong European Championship. Replacements must be found for Shaqiri, Sommer and Schär, who will probably be officially sent off in St. Gallen in October, both in the game and in the team hierarchy. The Nations League will also be used to build a new team and integrate players, as Tami emphasizes. Gregory Wüthrich is a newcomer to the current 23-player squad, but several others also have little experience in the senior national team.
The matches against Denmark on Thursday in Copenhagen and against Spain on Sunday in the sold-out Stade de Genève are an interesting and demanding start to the new campaign, which is divided into three challenges.
Nations League in fall and spring
The Swiss national team will play its six matches in the Nations League group stage until mid-November. This week's games will be followed by others in mid-October in Serbia and in St. Gallen against Denmark and in mid-November in Zurich against Serbia and away against Spain.
Further Nations League matches are scheduled for the following March, should Switzerland not be relegated directly to League B as the last team in the group. If it finishes in the top two, it will play a newly introduced quarter-final; if it finishes third in the group, it will have to play a League B runner-up to avoid relegation. As in previous editions, the Final Four will then take place in the summer.
"The primary goal is not to get relegated," says national coach Murat Yakin. "But it would be nice to finish in the top two so that we have the opportunity to play in the knockout round." Yakin emphasizes: "We take the Nations League very seriously." It is also about a good starting position for the draw for the World Cup qualifiers.
World Cup qualification from next year
Qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, which will take place in Mexico, the USA and Canada with 48 new teams, will begin in March or September of next year. 16 European teams will make it overseas: the twelve group winners of the World Cup qualifiers and four other teams that earn their ticket via the play-offs. All group runners-up and the top four group winners of the Nations League will take part in the play-offs.
The draw for the qualifying groups will take place at the end of November or beginning of December. It would of course be helpful for Switzerland to go into the draw at the top of the group. It has not yet been communicated which criteria will determine the allocation of the draw pots. Switzerland is currently the tenth European team in the FIFA rankings.
Highlight mega World Cup in summer 2026
With 16 more teams than last time, the World Cup will take place the year after next. Three of these additional starting places went to Europe. The preliminary round will be played in twelve groups of four teams each. The first two teams in each group and the eight best third-placed teams in each group will advance to the new round of 16 finals. For the semi-finalists, the number of matches has increased from seven to eight compared to the World Cup mode that has been used since 1998. There's no question: being at the 2026 World Cup is Switzerland's "main goal" (Tami) for the next cycle.
