The young dragons will face the youngsters of Switzerland on the 8th of October in regard to the u21 European Championship that will be held in Poland in 2017. The Swiss will host the Bosnian youngsters at Stade de Bienne in Biel at 18:30. BiH needs to recover from a poor start in Group 9 as they currently rank last in this group with 0 points out of two matches. It is clear that this match against the Swiss is considered to be more than important. However, despite the current ranking of the young dragons, everything is still possible in this group but a win would evidently be more than welcome. England is the current leader in Group 9 with 3 points followed by Switzerland (3 points), Norway (3 points), Kazakhstan (3 points) and BiH (0 points). It has to be noted that England and Switzerland have only played one match so far in contrast to the others who already played two matches.
The Swiss youngsters started off good in Group 9 as they defeated Kazakhstan with 0-1. Last month, the young dragons lost their match against the Kazakhs at home in Kosevo Stadium which ended in 1-2. BiH also lost the match against Norway earlier in June this year with 2-0. Since the appointment of head coach Darko Nestorovic on December 27 in 2014, the young dragons managed to win only one out of four matches. At the press conference ahead of this match, Nestorovic emphasized the previous poor performances and stated: “we’re not happy with some of the players’ performance in the last few games, but we have a different lineup now. Mistakes can happen but lack of effort is inexcusable when you wear national colors. We’ll try to surprise Switzerland and win at the same time. I hope these players will be up to the task and justify expectations.” In any case, the current top goal scorer Armin Hodzic will be absent for this match as he is invited to join the national ‘A’ team that will play against Wales and Cyprus later this week. But the young and talented dragons should nevertheless be able to deliver good performances on the international stage.
According to the official UEFA rules, the nine group winners qualify automatically for the European Championship. The four runners-up with the best record against the nations first, third, fourth and fifth in their sections advance to the play-offs. In this regard, the Bosnian youngsters need a couple of 3 pointers soon in order to remain in the race for qualification.
Written by Dustin Giel
