By David Gold
July 5 – Bayern Munich’s Xherdan Shaqiri is the major absentee from Switzerland’s Olympic men’s coach Pierluigi Tami’s squad for London.
Shaqiri (pictured top, in white) has been left out following a request from the Bundesliga runners up, who have just signed the highly talented midfielder from Basel.
However, new Borussia Moenchengladbach signing Granit Xhaka (pictured below), who also joined from Basel, is in the 18-man squad, despite his team having Champions League qualifiers in the middle of August.
Shaqiri and Xhaka’s former teammate, Fabian Frei, is the only player selected from the current Basel team, who also participate in the Champions League qualifiers.
The squad features four players who were part of the 2009 FIFA Under-17 World Cup-winning side, which includes, along with Xhaka, Benjamin Siegrist, Ricardo Rodriguez and Pajtim Kasami.
It is a talented young Swiss team which will play in London, who qualified by finishing as runners up at last year’s UEFA European Under-21 Championship.
The three players over the age of 23 allowed to be picked are experienced full back Valon Behrami, Diego Benaglio and Timm Klose.
Switzerland will play Gabon, South Korea and Mexico in a tricky group at London 2012.
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