Chile Battles Past Switzerland

Chile strengthened their hopes of reaching the last sixteen of the 2010 World Cup with a 1-0 win over ten man Switzerland.

The South American side are not top of Group H with six points from their first two matches with Switzerland, who enjoyed that shock win over Spain, behind on three.

Switzerland showed great defensive resilience and it wasn’t until the seventh fifth minute that the deadlock between the two sides was finally broken.

Chile looked dangerous from the start as a curling shot from Vidal and a shot from Carmona were well saved by Swiss goalkeeper Benaglio.

While there was some great play in the opening stages of the match the entire game was overshadowed by the referee as he insisted on waving yellow cards left right and centre and every five minutes.

It took him just sixty seconds to get a name into the book as he pulled up Humberto Suazo for a high foot on Grichting.

Carmona was next to see yellow after a fairly harsh challenge on Behrami, he will now miss the final game against Spain.

In the first twenty five minutes Switzerland had only one real chance on goal came from a Ziegler free kick, which Grichting headed well wide.

And with all the yellow cards flying around, three in the opening twenty five minutes, it seemed inevitable that a red would not be too far away, sadly it came after thirty minutes.

It was Behrami who was given his marching orders when he raised his arm into the face of Vidal, which was an instant red card; much to the disgust of the Switzerland players.

Despite having the majority of the possession in the opening half Chile could not convert the few chances that they had at goal and when the half time whistle went the teams were still locked in a 0-0 stalemate.

Into the second half and Chile thought that they had finally broken down the Swiss defence when a deflected shot of Valdivia found the back of the net.

But celebrations were cut short when it was shown that three Chile players had in fact been offside and the Swiss had been left off the hook.

The Swiss goal was under attack again in the fifty fifth minute when Sanchez ran into the box and shot, but Bengalio was quick to the danger and he dealt with the threat well.

It wasn’t until the seventy fifth minute when Chile finally broke through the resilience of the Swiss when a pass from Paredes was headed in by Gonzalez, and Chile were finally ahead.

There were chances to put the match beyond any doubt for Chile as Paredes sent one shot flying over the bar and another wide.

Gokhan Inler, Gary Medel and Matias Fernandez were just three more players that were issued with yellow cards during the second half, Fernandez will now miss the final match against Spain.

But 1-0 was the way it stayed and Chile now top Group H. Spain need to win their second group match this evening against Honduras if they want to avoid an early plane home, they are currently leading 1-0.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw