Murat Yakin has been building the new national team since the fall – will he make progress in the USA?

The Swiss footballers have been in the USA for a few days now, and when they talked about what they actually want here, at the end of a long season, they answered something like: a lot.

Now it’s “serious,” said Murat Yakin, the national coach.

“We have to deliver,” said Granit Xhaka, the captain.

This trip is not a “passeggiata,” not a walk, clarified Pierluigi Tami, the national team director.

Anyone who speaks about a trip like that is giving it significance. The Swiss are making an effort to approach their trip to the US seriously. And soon, it will be serious for them.

In late summer, when they next meet on a Monday in September, the Swiss team will only have a few training sessions left, and then it's off to the World Cup qualifiers, with two home games first, Kosovo and Slovenia, and then trips to Sweden and Slovenia in October.

The task is difficult. They face a well-staffed Sweden, the difficult Slovenians, and finally, the Kosovars, whom the Swiss team has never beaten in three matches. Only the best of the four will qualify directly. The group runner-up will have a second chance via the challenging playoff route.

Six games in just over two months: It's going to be a World Cup qualification run in a flash, which also means it could all be over quickly. The dream of the 2026 World Cup, which could be the last for influential footballers like Xhaka and Ricardo Rodriguez, is over. Murat Yakin's time as national coach is also over, as his contract only automatically continues if he successfully qualifies.

All of this adds importance to the upcoming days in America and the games against Mexico (Saturday, 10 p.m., Swiss time) and the USA (Wednesday, 2 a.m.) because they offer time to work on things, develop a plan and test it.

Coach Yakin has been building the new national team for almost a year now. He emerged from the European Championship in Germany as the shining winner, reaching the quarterfinals after some brilliant performances, particularly in the round of 16, with a 2-0 victory over Italy.

Since then, the Swiss footballers have won only one of their eight matches, a 3-0 victory against Luxembourg in St. Gallen in March. They were relegated from the Nations League last fall, and neither coach nor players have been particularly keen on identifying the cause . Sometimes it was the referee's fault, sometimes the inadequate pitch, and rarely the Swiss themselves, their lack of resilience, their inefficiency, or their lack of creativity.

On the trip to the USA, Yakin hinted that his players had also lacked motivation in the fall. He has rarely publicly reflected on his own part in the misery. Yakin is still drawing on the credit he earned at the European Championships, where he demonstrated his ability to be an outstanding tournament coach.

But the bigger picture includes more than just the European Championship. Also included are the 2023 European Championship qualification campaign, in which the Swiss stumbled badly and Yakin was on the verge of being fired. In the last two years, the team has won only seven of its 25 matches: against Andorra (twice), Ireland, Estonia, Luxembourg—and at the European Championship against Hungary and Italy.

After the European Championship, three long-standing pillars of the team, Yann Sommer, Xherdan Shaqiri, and Fabian Schär, stepped down. Yakin has so far failed to master the task of rebuilding the squad, injecting fresh ideas and fresh blood, and establishing a new hierarchy.

But perhaps that will change now, perhaps the approaching World Cup qualification will inspire Yakin. There are signs of this. In the run-up to the games against Mexico and the USA, the 50-year-old spoke in detail about his plans. About how he wants to make room in midfield for Ardon Jashari, the young midfielder who shone so brilliantly in Belgium . And he actually also wanted to try an experiment that he has been thinking about for a long time: Denis Zakaria, who shone as captain of Monaco's midfield last season, was to be tested in the back three in the USA. But on Friday it was announced that Zakaria was leaving due to muscular problems.

Yakin's considerations regarding Jashari and Zakaria illustrate the state of the Swiss squad. There are plenty of options in midfield. Yakin has captain Xhaka and Remo Freuler, his preferred duo. He has Jashari and, before his injury, Zakaria, who were so brilliant at the club that he wanted to somehow incorporate them into his formation. And he has a whole host of other central midfielders he'd probably most like to convert. For example, into attacking players.

Of those, only three are in the squad—Breel Embolo, Dan Ndoye, and Zeki Amdouni—because Ruben Vargas is out injured, as is the young Alvyn Sanches. And there's no one else who could bring creativity and goal threat to this team.

No wonder the debate about a possible return of Xherdan Shaqiri just doesn't seem to be dying down. It's easy to forget where Shaqiri produced his goals and assists: in the Swiss Super League, for FC Basel, where everything is geared towards him in a way that would never be possible for the national team in a World Cup qualifier.

For Yakin, the situation is still uncomfortable. The two now only communicate via the media . This reveals just how severe the ties between Yakin and the longtime fan favorite have become. There was something strange about the way Shaqiri's time with the national team ended last summer, as did Yann Sommer and defender Fabian Schär , and somehow it all still hangs over the national team.

But all three are gone, and the new national team needs to take shape. What captain Xhaka said this week in Salt Lake City about the team's upheaval was telling. He spoke about things like hunger, heart, attitude, and even leadership. He emphasized that the team had lost "very great" personalities. And at one point, he said that the current phase was the biggest challenge since he joined the national team, "definitely."