Berlin. Defending champion Italy aims to continue its dominance over Switzerland to reach the quarterfinals of the European Championship on Saturday. Switzerland hasn’t beaten Italy for 31 years and has only eight wins from their previous 61 meetings. But the Swiss are unbeaten this year and their only loss in 2023 came in the last game of qualifying. Kickoff is at 6 p.m. local (1600 GMT) or 11 p.m. Jakarta time on Saturday. 

Italy has fond memories of playing at Berlin’s Olympiastadion after beating France on penalties in the 2006 World Cup final in its last game in the stadium, where it also defeated Austria 2-1 in the final of the 1936 Olympic Games.

So far, Euro 2024 has been a difficult experience for the Azzuri, conceding after just 23 seconds in its opening 2-1 win over Albania, then being thoroughly outclassed in a 1-0 defeat to Spain, before it needed a last-second strike from Italy substitute Mattia Zaccagni to salvage a 1-1 draw against Croatia to finish runner-up in Group B.

Switzerland opened with a 3-1 win over Hungary before 1-1 draws against Scotland and host nation Germany.

Switzerland and Italy faced each other in qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. They drew both games and the Swiss finished top of the group to qualify. Italy lost to North Macedonia in the playoffs and missed out. It was the Italians’ second successive failure to qualify for the World Cup.

Switzerland players Yann Sommer, Ricardo Rodríguez, Remo Freuler, Noah Okafor, Michel Aebischer, Dan Ndoye, Dennis Zakaria, Silvan Widmer and Xherdan Shaqiri have all played in Italy’s Serie A.

In contrast, defender Federico Dimarco is the only member of Italy’s squad to have played in Switzerland, spending one season at Sion in 2017-18.

The winner will face England or Slovakia in the quarterfinals in Düsseldorf on July 6.

Italy defender Riccardo Calafiori is suspended, left-back Federico Dimarco is out with an injury, and fellow defender Alessandro Bastoni's availability is in question. 

“Bastoni needs to be assessed tomorrow because he did a portion of the training session today … but then he had a bit of a setback. So, he’s had a few degrees of fever. But then we tried to let him rest up, and he had his first training session there, and he’s already a lot better. But we need to see overnight how he responds,” Italy coach Luciano Spalletti said on Friday. 

Spalletti added Gianluca Mancini will replace the suspended Calafiori “because he’s got the right amount of experience.”

Defender Silvan Widmer is suspended for Switzerland and a number of players, including Granit Xhaka, are in danger of missing the next match if booked.

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