Vonlanthen just the tonic for Swiss

THE arrival of the precocious Johann Vonlanthen on the international scene for Switzerland was the perfect balm to soothe their disappointment at having to depart the European Championship in Portugal before the knock-out stages.

Vonlanthen, a late addition to the squad, was given an introduction to competitive football against European champions France and celebrated by scoring a marvellous goal. Still only 18 years of age, he was called up by manager Kobi Kuhn when experienced striker, Marco Streller, suffered a serious injury.

Three senior Swiss players, including Chapuisat, announced their international retirement yesterday following the team's elimination. Goalkeeper and captain Joerg Stiel and midfielder Fabio Celestini are also making way for a new generation headed by Vonlanthen.

The Swiss expect the 18-year-old to go on to fire them to repeat their successes over Ireland in the qualifying series for the European Championship when the World Cup qualifiers kick off next September. Switzerland are again in Ireland’s group along with France, Israel, Cyprus and the Faroe Islands.

Full-back Bernt Haas spoke after their elimination from the current championship by France of the need for the Swiss to nurture the developing talent of Vonlanthen.

The West Bromwich player said: “Centre-forward is an area where we have problems. Alex Frei could be suspended for four or five games, Stephane Chapuisat is still playing but is not the youngest and Marco Streller has a bad injury so Vonlanthen could be very important for Switzerland.”

Midfielder Christoph Spycher said: “The players who are retiring were very important for us but the young players are exciting... young Vonlanthen scored a goal so we are not scared for the future.”

In football everything is relative and the Swiss expressed satisfaction with their performances in Portugal where they drew in a scoreless game with Croatia before losing 0-3 to England and 1-3 to France. Curiously, they went home from the last European Championship with a very similar record.

Midfielder Ricardo Cabanas, who exerted a big influence when he came into the team for the game against France, insisted: “We can very proud of our last game against France. We showed that we deserved to be here but now the Euro championship is finished for us and we start from scratch in the World Cup.

“It will be very difficult to qualify again with France, Ireland and Israel in our group but I know we have a very good team and we showed this against France. We know that Ireland was at home for Euro 2004 and they have a point to prove against us.

“It will be very difficult for us but we showed during 75 minutes that we can compete at this level and I believe we can qualify for Germany.”

Switzerland's giant striker/midfielder, Benjamin Huggel, said: “I think in our group France are the favourites but in the qualifiers for Portugal we had Ireland in our group and we beat them twice. Ireland are at the same level as us and we know that on good days we can beat them, and on bad days they can beat us. It will be a hard, tough fight.”

Huggel admitted that he believed Ireland would be more difficult to beat if Roy Keane plays. “I don’t know the reason why he quit for a while. For me it was surprising that he didn't want to play for Ireland for a year or two so we’ll see what happens.”