Dynamic duo ensure Switzerland work like clockwork

BEFORE kick-off against the Faroe Islands in Basel on Saturday they were Switzerland’s odd couple, a patchwork partnership put together at short notice.

Fifty seven minutes and two hat-tricks later, Johan Vonlanthen and Alexandre Rey became the national team’s dynamic duo, who now eagerly await Ireland on Wednesday.

“I did not doubt that Johan and Alex would work well together,” said manager Kobi Kuhn. “But six goals between them? No, I didn’t expect that. It was a strong performance and a good win in the opening game of the group. It is always good to see your strikers scoring and they did well, but the other teams in the group will have other strengths for us to overcome,” he said.

The pair had never before played together and were picked by Kuhn as an emergency strike force. Though separated by nearly 14 years, they completed their hat-tricks within a three-minute spell early in the second half.

“We’ve avoided a banana skin”, said Neauchatel striker Rey, who will soon be 32. After three years out of the national team, he boosted his goal tally to five in his 16th cap on Saturday.

“Ireland will be very different,” warned teenage prodigy Vonlanthen. “You don’t beat the Irish 6-0.”

But Vonlanthen knows how to score against Irish defenders. In Buckley Park two year’s ago he marked his debut for the Swiss U21 team with a superb late winner past Joe Murphy as Don Givens’s youngsters wasted a 2-0 lead and lost 3-2. Images of the strike by the 16-year-old substitute were flashed across Europe.

Despite scoring three goals in 19 games for PSV last season, Vonlanthen is struggling to break into the Eindhoven attack this season. Yet there was no lack of sharpness about his work against the Faroes.

Late in the game he was utterly unselfish when he crossed for Benjamin Huggel instead of trying to claim a fourth goal. The chance was missed, but Kuhn admired the teamwork.

SWITZERLAND: P Zuberbuehler; B Haas, P Mueller, M Yakin, C Spycher (L Magnin 46); R Cabanas (B Huggel 63), R Wicky, J Vogel; H Yakin; A Rey (T Haeberli 74), J Vonlanthen.

FAROE ISLANDS: JM Knudsen; S Olsen, O Johannesen, P Thorsteinsson, J Roi Jacobsen; J a Borg (A Danielsen 63), J Johnsson, F Benjaminsen, C Bech Jorgensen (J Byrial Hansen 70); J Petersen (R Jacobsen 57), J Frederiksberg.

Referee: Alexandru Dan Tudor (Romania).