Sports FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014 46 Suarez dreams of new WCup shock

TEGUCIGALPA: Luis Fernando Suarez is dreaming of a repeat of his greatest moment in football when he was coach of the Ecuador team that upset Poland 2-0 at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Now in charge of Honduras, Ecuador could become his next famous scalp. The two sides are drawn together in Group E at the finals which start June 12 in Brazil. Switzerland and France are the more ambitious targets in the group. Suarez is already a national hero in his native Colombia and Ecuador (for his 2006 exploits) and could now add celebrity Switzerland’s national football team German coach status in Honduras if they win a match at the World Cup finals Ottmar Hitzfeld for the first time. Suarez, 54, played his football in Colombia and made his name as a coach guiding Atletico Nacional to Swiss young guns the Colombian championship in 1999 and Ecuador to the round of 16 at the 2006 finals with victories over Poland and Costa Rica. seek big farewell Ecuador eventually lost 1-0 to England, It is the goals by Carlos Tenorio, Augustin Delgado that secured victory over for Hitzfeld Poland that remains the highlight of his career. “It was certain- ly that first match, that first step was the most important” GENEVA: Switzerland’s veteran boss Ottmar Hitzfeld retires Suarez said in one interview. “Without exaggerating every- after the World Cup finals and his young squad aim to give thing went as we had anticipated. We had planned how we him a farewell to remember in Brazil. In their third consecu- could counter their strengths. The game went very well, tive World Cup, the “Nati” are out to prove that their seventh almost perfectly. I enjoyed it. The tactics were right and better place in FIFA’s global rankings is not a statistical fluke. The 65- than the opponents.” Ecuador asked its hero to stay on until year-old German Hitzfeld has set his sights on at least clearing the 2010 World Cup, but the story followed a popular football Group E, where Switzerland face France, Ecuador and path and turned sour. Honduras. Reaching the last 16 would erase Switzerland’s bad Calls for his resignation started after Ecuador’s poor show memories of 2010 in South Africa. They were the only team to at the 2007 Copa America. Suarez vowed to stay but in quali- fiers for the 2010 World Cup, Ecuador lost 1-0 at home to beat eventual champions Spain, winning 1-0 in their opening Venezuela, were hammered 5-0 by Brazil and 5-1 by Paraguay. game, but then lost 1-0 to Chile and drew 0-0 with Honduras Suarez had no choice and in October 2009 left to manage and so failed to reach the knockout stage. Peruvian side Juan Aurich. Since being named Honduras That was a blow after their showing in Germany in 2006 coach in March 2011, he has been plotting what he calls a typ- under Hitzfeld’s predecessor, Swiss icon Koebi Kuhn. There, ically “low profile” campaign to get a shock win. As with they finished top of their group, ahead of France, South Korea Ecuador in Germany, Suarez has insisted that Honduras stay in and Togo, but were knocked out on penalties by Ukraine in a small hotel in Brazil. the next round. Former Borussia Dortmund and Bayern He has also rebuilt the squad into a team dangerous on the Munich boss Hitzfeld has said the looming tournament will counter-attack, as they proved with a landmark win in Mexico bring down the curtain on his three-decade coaching career. during the qualifying tournament. “In Ecuador and Honduras I Though his star fell after his failure to reach the 2012 cleaned out the players who thought they were more impor- European Championships, Hitzfeld rebounded and is now tant than the team,” Suarez said. Honduras’ all-time top scorer nicknamed “Gottmar”-a play on the German for God. Football Carlos Pavon and veteran Amado Guevara were both booted is rivaled only by ice hockey and skiing as the Alpine country’s out of the squad, which still has the highest average age in the LIVERPOOL: Liverpool’s Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez top spectator sport. 32 World Cup teams. “People under-estimate us so we can do gestures to the crowd after the end of the English Premier Average crowds of 11,000 per match are small compared this,” Suarez said.— AFP League football match. — AFP to many European leagues, but multiple Swiss champions and 2013 Europa League semi-finalists FC Basel pull in 28,000. The country of eight million also punches above its weight for players fed into the leagues of Germany, Italy, England and Spain. Like Kuhn, Hitzfeld has tapped Switzerland’s admired Time for France to youth system, drawing the highly-rated squad that won the 2009 Under-17 World Cup-Switzerland’s only international trophy. Among them are 22-year-old Haris Seferovic, at Real look to the future Sociedad, plus 21-year-olds Granit Xhaka of Borussia Monchengladbach and Pajtim Kasami of Fulham. Like 22-year-old Bayern Munich winger Xherdan Shaqiri, PARIS: For France, after qualifying in such French were eliminated in the quarter-finals 2012. “When he plays at that level it is great dramatic fashion, this year’s World Cup will by Spain. for us,” said Deschamps of Benzema after the players are the Swiss version of the “rainbow” teams in be as much about banishing the bad mem- Under his charge, France have won just the defeat of the Dutch. “Let’s hope he can Europe that have been reinvigorated by migrants They are ories of the recent past as building towards nine times in 19 games but they got the job keep it up. You can see it on his face. He is part of a Balkan migrant community which emerged when the future. The farce of France’s 2010 World done, finishing an acceptable second to beaming and that is because he is feeling seasonal workers came from the former Yugoslavia in the Cup campaign in South Africa, marked by a reigning world champions Spain in their confident.” 1970s and which expanded when Switzerland admitted players’ strike and a group-stage exit, ruined qualifying group and then dramatically refugees from the region’s wars of the 1990s. Fittingly, the public’s perception of Les Bleus at beating Ukraine in a play-off, winning 3-0 at Strength in depth Hitzfeld’s chosen successor, Lazio manager Vladimir Petkovic, home, and subsequent incidents have not the Stade de France after a 2-0 loss in Kiev. In Benzema and 30-year-old Bayern is Yugoslav-born but spent much of his career in Italian-speak- helped. That maintained Les Bleus’ record of having Munich winger Franck Ribery - who came ing Switzerland. On the footballing front, the omens for Brazil Samir Nasri’s outburst towards a journal- qualified for every major tournament finals third behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel are mixed, however. ist at Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Patrice Evra’s since missing out on USA 1994, and the Messi in the voting for the 2013 FIFA Ballon A 16-match unbeaten streak-including surprise defeats of verbal assault on a host of respected media stunning nature of that second-leg display d’Or - Deschamps has two world-class tal- Germany and Brazil in friendlies-ended in November when pundits in a television interview late last against Ukraine did a lot to restore a ents at the peak of their careers, but there is they lost 2-1 in South Korea. Nor was their World Cup qualify- year two of the most notable episodes. It nation’s faith in their team. depth at his disposal too. An exciting crop ing run the toughest, with opponents in the shape of Albania, has been one disappointment after another France’s only outing since then was a of young players is emerging too. France for the French since their remarkable run to promising 2-0 win against the Netherlands, enjoyed remarkable success at youth level Cyprus, Iceland, Norway and Slovenia. The Swiss came top the final of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, in which Karim Benzema scored for the last year, winning the under-20 World Cup despite being held to draws by Cyprus and Iceland-who pro- but things are slowly but surely progressing fourth time in five international appear- and reaching the final of the under-19 vided a stern lesson by clawing back from 4-1 down to level at under Didier Deschamps. The captain of the ances. It was further proof that the 26-year- European Championship, and Juventus 4-4. To fine tune their skills for Brazil, they set up home friend- team that were crowned world champions old Real Madrid striker is once again com- midfielder Paul Pogba, the captain of the lies against Croatia, with whom they drew 2-2 in March, on home soil in 1998, Deschamps succeed- fortable playing for his country after a under-20 team, is already part of the full Jamaica in May and Peru two weeks before their opening ed his former international colleague shocking international goal drought of side along with Real Madrid defender World Cup match against Ecuador on June 15.—AFP Laurent Blanc after Euro 2012, when the more than 1,200 minutes either side of Euro Raphael Varane. —AFP