Shaqiri's journey from 'no Liverpool champion' to rivalling Messi's huge wages

08 June 2024 , 08:00

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Xherdan Shaqiri has scored at Switzerland's last five major tournaments (Image: PA)

There will eventually come a day when the same old faces don't line up for Switzerland in a major tournament, but that day isn't yet here.

The Swiss side which takes to the field in Germany will still include Yann Sommer, the goalkeeper who saved Kylian Mbappe's penalty at Euro 2020, was superb against Spain in the quarter-finals and has just won Serie A with Inter Milan, being voted into the team of the season.

It'll also have the left-back Ricardo Rodriguez, he of well over 100 caps and the captain of Torino, and speaking of captains it'll also include the skipper Granit Xhaka, fresh off the season of his life with Xabi Alonso in Leverkusen after his much-needed career refresh following those often turbulent years at Arsenal.

And where there is Xhaka, there is Xherdan Shaqiri, the little attacker who was reportedly furious to miss out on the armband to his international team-mate but is nonetheless still a vital part of the Swiss side at the age of 32.

Shaqiri heads to Germany having scored in each of Switzerland's last five major tournaments dating back to a hat-trick against Honduras at the 2014 World Cup, and although he may have disappeared off the European football radar now he can still be box office.

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Shaqiri scored one of the goals of the tournament at Euro 2016 (Getty Images)

After his fitful three-year Liverpool career - despite being called 'no Liverpool champion' by Swiss pundit Arno Rossini he did play enough games to earn a Premier League winners' medal in 2019-20, and started that epic Champions League semi-final against Barcelona the previous season, providing an assist for Gini Wijnaldum's equaliser - he moved on to Lyon in 2021.

It didn't really work out in France though, and since then Shaqiri - often seen as a bit-part player at several of the clubs he's been at - has embraced the role of being a 'designated player' at Chicago Fire in the MLS, accepting the riches that goes along with that even if he did initially claim it was something of a 'semi-retirement', even briefly losing his place in the Swiss squad as a result.

Shaqiri joined Chicago Fire in 2022, initially as the league's highest-paid player (Getty Images)

For a while Shaqiri was the highest-paid player in the MLS, before Lionel Messi came along and blew everyone else's money out of the water at Inter Miami, where he was joined by Sergio Busquets. Lorenzo Insigne's renewal with Toronto now pushes Shaqiri down to fourth, but over $8million a year isn't be to sniffed at even if Chicago have been struggling.

This is likely to be Shaqiri's final major tournament with Switzerland, even if he'll be desperate to hang on for a World Cup partially in the United States in 2026, and the Swiss might have to find inspiration from some of their younger talents.

That may be tricky though, especially with lively attacker Breel Embolo only just returning from an ACL injury in April and having played just five times for Monaco all season. Fellow attacker Ruben Vargas scored just four times for Augsburg this campaign, while Steven Zuber and Renato Steffen are both the wrong side of 30.

Breel Embolo suffered an ACL injury in August (DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

There is life in Burnley's 23-year-old Zeki Amdouni, who has seven goals in 14 international appearances at the time of writing, but showed in the Premier League that he can be inconsistent.

Consistency is something we've come to expect from the Swiss in the Euros, with last-16 spots a given and sometimes going even further, such as when they shocked France in a thriller last time out.

They could be up against it here though, with Hungary and Scotland boasting younger, perhaps hungrier squads, and Switzerland's veterans not quite surrounded by the amount of young legs they'll need. Getting out of the group will be tricky, and even then you can't see them going much further.

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Mark Jones